[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Intergage, I suspect from reading what you've written, that you may be using too much magnification to start with. Even with a "cheap" telescope, look to use your lowest magnification first. This will give you the widest field of view to actually locate objects first. Otherwise it would be like trying to aim at a fly with a gun instead of a spray. Once you've located the object you can then decide to use higher magnification if you like.

Not all objects need the power cranked up either - the Orion nebula is one of them that benefits from low power best.

Do you have a pair of binoculars? Reason I ask is that the Orion nebula is not only easily visible even in the smallest of pairs, but it will make locating it quick and easy in the sky. You can aim your scope at the right bit of the sky once you've got your bearings right.

The picture below is of how the constellation Orion appears to us here in Oz, upside down. You'll see that there are three bright stars in a row across the middle - that's Orion's belt. Just above the belt in the centre of a quadrilateral fromed by the belt and two other bright stars is a ruby coloured star with two white companions - this is Orion's sword. The ruby coloured star is the Orion nebula.



For your reference, the red star on the bottom right forms Orion's right shoulder, the rest of his chest reaches across to the star at the bottom left. Those three little stars below the line of the shoulder's is Orion's head (he is looking to the East at Taurus the bull armed with a club in his right hand and holding a lion skin shield in his left).

Have a go again. Once you know where to look it all makes sense. I've also attached a sketch of mine that I did using my 30 year old 2" Tasco reflector, and done from my backyard in Sydney. The Orion nebula at the time was sitting dead smack over the glare of Sydney's CBD from my place, and it was still a very detailed object from my home in this tiny scope.



Cranking up the aperture, here's a sketch of the same nebula using my 17.5" scope, and also from my home.



Note that both these sketches were also done using the lowest power achievable with both these scopes, not the highest.

The Sombrero is also visible as a tiny thin streak in my 10X50 binos. Trick is knowing where to look. Allan can show you where the bugger sits,