DSO's dam them!!

BowzerS14 · #1 15-03-2006, 04:51 PM

Hi all
Have been out a few times now with my scope (8" dob) and have had some good views of saturn and the like.
My question is were are all the DSO's!!!! I have used stelerium(??) and it has M42 and many others (all seem to be around mag 8) but i cant seem to find them in the night sky!! I have made some sense of the star charts i have but am still having no luck finding them.
Also were can i find the relevant names - ie: cats eye nebula = M?? and so on.
I Live in SE suburbs of melbourne and its brighish at night but i didnt think it would stop me from seeing other DSO's, unless of course im still looking in the wrong place!!!!!

Thanks for the help

BowzerS14 · #2 15-03-2006, 05:14 PM

Ooops. Sorry. Thanks for moving it to the right section.

janoskiss (Steve H) · #3 15-03-2006, 05:21 PM

It's the worst time to look for DSOs right now because it is a full moon. But M42 and other bright ones are still visible with binoculars. Look for the brightest stars first and navigate from there. Get a planisphere if you haven't got one. Google will help you with the names.

Dennis · #4 15-03-2006, 05:37 PM

Hey Bowzer

If in your mind's eye you are expecting to visually perceive DSO's as portrayed by the excellent images you find on Ice In Space, Astronomy mag's etc then I'm sorry to say you will be disappointed.

These CCD images are the result of loooong exposures with electronic devices that are sensitive to the full range of colours of the DSO. The details and colour you see in these images are because the light has fallen onto the ccd recording chip and been collected linearly over several minutes.

Our eyes do not respond in the same way. We have Rods and Cones in our eyes that apparently help us “see”. I think Rods like daylight and allow us to see colour, whereas Cones kick in at night time and are poor at recording colour and they do not accumulate photons like a ccd chip or film.

Therefore, a visual look at e.g. NGC253 or M83, both wonderful S hemisphere galaxies, delivers a lot less wow and detail than an image.

Hope that makes sense.

Cheers

Dennis

Volans · #5 15-03-2006, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dennis

Our eyes do not respond in the same way. We have Rods and Cones in our eyes that apparently help us “see”. I think Rods like daylight and allow us to see colour, whereas Cones kick in at night time and are poor at recording colour and they do not accumulate photons like a ccd chip or film.

Sorry to be pedantic, but it's the other way around. Cones for colour and Rods for night vision. Because our Rods are on the edge of our retina and we use the Rods for night vision, this is why you use averted vision to see faint DSO's.

Now all of that is off topic...so back to the question. Stellarium is a very good program and quite powerful considering its freeware nature. But as far as providing you with a good idea of where an object is,

, it's not really the best thing to use. Best to use a star chart, either from a computer program or from a dedicated star chart book (Norton's, Uranometria, Bobroff charts etc.) Learn how to read and use a star chart by starting off with something easy like M42, and then progress onto other objects.

Powerful astronomy software will give you common names of DSO's along with their relevant catalogue number/s. If you don't have acess to such a program then simply Google it! Type in "Orion Nebula" and Google should spit out a HUGE number of sites mentioning M42.

The other thing to remember about some DSO's is "surface brightness". An object may be listed as Mag. 9 and yes, a Mag. 9 star would be easily seen through an 8" dob, but a DSO has its brightness spread over a larger area than just a point of light like a star. So a Mag. 9 DSO can appear alot fainter than Mag. 9

Hope this helps.

Peter.

acropolite (Phil) · #6 15-03-2006, 06:44 PM

Hey BowserS14, while you're waiting to find star charts etc, slip outside and find the "pot" or "iron pot" as some would call it (it's part of orion). M42 is located in the handle of the pot and it's as good a starting point as you can get, in reasonable skies M42 is visible Naked eye as a faint smudge and easily visible with Bino's and Telescopes.
Follow this link http://www.skymaps.com/ for a free printable monthly skychart with a list of objects suitable for Naked eye, Bino's and telescopes. Good luck and if you still can't find anything keep asking.

vespine · #7 15-03-2006, 06:50 PM

Heya

I'm only very new to this forum too, I've recently borrowed a friends 60mm wobblemaster refractor and had no trouble seeing orion nebula last night with the full moon and the light polluted skies of St Kilda.

I was looking through a 4mm (175x magnification) eye piece, which I am sure is as cheap as you can get, but there was definitely something there. What did it look like? Well, there was a couple of faint 'star like' points and an even feinter glowy smudge around them.

Looking directly at it there wasn't any kind of detail that I could see but nudging the scope and causing the object to jiggle around the eyepiece seemed to make it a lot more visible, I'm guessing because of the centre of vision being not as sensitive to light, like described in the post above.

What you do is point the telescope at a part of the sky and move it around to appreciate just how 'empty' large portions of the sky are, when you look around you can spend a long time looking at literally NOTHING! So then when you DO come across something you definitely know you aren't just seeing an "average" bit of the sky.

Another thing I found which I thought looked really cool was the open clusters near the constellation of corina, there are several, and a bright nebula (but I don't quite know if I could see that with the equipment I have at my current disposal) it's roughly between the southern cross and the false cross, now there's a piece of sky that's NOT average!

janoskiss (Steve H) · #8 15-03-2006, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vespine

What you do is point the telescope at a part of the sky and move it around to appreciate just how 'empty' large portions of the sky are, when you look around you can spend a long time looking at literally NOTHING! So then when you DO come across something you definitely know you aren't just seeing an "average" bit of the sky.

That is normally not correct except when you are using the smallest of telescopes under some of the most light polluted skies. Unless it is within a few days of a full Moon, I can point my scope anywhere in the sky and see plenty stars in the field of view. And that's from my light polluted backyard. When I go for a drive out of the city, the field of view is full of lots of stars, where ever I point the scope.

Good tip about Carina between the Cross and the False Cross. Lots of bright DSOs there.

acropolite (Phil) · #9 15-03-2006, 09:32 PM

BTW it's worth mentioning that 175x is probably a bit high mag for viewing orion, try around 75 times.

Dennis · #10 15-03-2006, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Volans

Sorry to be pedantic, but it's the other way around. Cones for colour and Rods for night vision. Because our Rods are on the edge of our retina and we use the Rods for night vision, this is why you use averted vision to see faint DSO's.

Peter.

Thanks for that Peter; I guessed and had a 50/50 chance, but went the wrong way. I should have asked the audience or 'phoned a friend.

Cheers

Dennis

BowzerS14 · #11 15-03-2006, 11:30 PM

hmmm thanks for all the replies people.
Ill definately have to get out there and check out Carina between the Cross and the False Cross. Need god weather dam it.

Thanks all

ving (David) · #12 16-03-2006, 12:24 PM

hi bowzer,
if you are looking at say a galaxy that is mag 9 and you have a full moon the chances are you wont see it. whe there is no moon (new moon) you will see a hell of alot more, but even then your mag9 galaxy is likely to show up and no more then a grey smudge (a faint one at that). under dark skies you may see detail like stars and some shape in that mag9 galaxy.

I hope that puts what you are seeing in some perspective

mag9 is very dim.

Dave47tuc (David) · #13 16-03-2006, 06:51 PM

I find it strange that people don't have a good Star Atlas anymore

Go to Bintel or a good book shop and ask for a good Star Atlas. Yes you can print out charts but IMO its better to have one good star Atlas.
Sky Atlas 2000 is a good one.

Then try to get to a darkish site. Or in Melbourne away from as many lights as possible.
You can see many DSO from Melbourne. Look around the southern cross ( Crux) with Bino's when the Moon has gone.
Start next week.

EzyStyles (Eric) · #14 23-03-2006, 07:02 PM

Hey BowzerS14, I live south eastern sub in melb as well. what suburb are you in? Since you also have a 8" scope, you will not see anything pass mag 8. Note the only visible DSO which you can see kinda clearly is the M42. Forget about galaxies it will be just a haze on a dark night. Other nebula's are just grey blurry clouds.

A good star chart i recommend is Stallarium. It's free and i personally find it very easy to use. 3D and you can actually zoom right in.

Starcrazzy · #15 01-04-2006, 12:01 PM

Hi,
Yes, i too started out with an 8" dob..I looked and looked for a few nights and couldn't find anything of interest..But 2 things were happening..I was looking for the wrong thing, and i was looking in the wrong place....My first results came when i used BOTH stellarium and printed out maps...i used the stellarium to orriantate the maps...thats the real key..just how do you hold the maps so they are alligned with what you are seeing...So i would recomend starting with the southern cross...it has a distinct shape and its easy to orriantate the maps to it..and go from there...hop from bright star to bright star and then hone in on what ur looking for...from memory my first deepspace object was the jewel box luster near the cross...if you imagine there was a guy pinned to the cross..beta crux would be where his right hand is..well, just beside this star is the jewel box cluster...a pretty open cluster tht through your 8" should look fantastic..
Have fun...and don't give up...if it were easy, evryone would be doing it

cometcatcher (Kevin) · #16 01-04-2006, 01:46 PM

When you've found the Jewel box look for the red star in there. It contrasts well with the other more "white" stars. Near the Jewel Box is one of the stars of the southern cross. In the same eyepiece field of view there's another dimmer but very red star that contrasts beautifully to the main star in colour and brightness.

Starcrazzy · #17 01-04-2006, 03:31 PM

Oh..there's one thing i forgot...Do you have a red dot finder or telrad of any description??If not..get one...it makes navigating the sky sooooooo much easier...it puts a red dot un magnified against the sky so you can tell exactly where the scope is pointed....saving you heaps of hasstle...that was one of the things that really held me back when i started...i couldn't tell exactly where the scope was pointing..casue a soon as you look through it its all reversed and there's just sooooo many stars...
ebay sells them for around 20 bucks...ya don't need an expensive one...is a simple Neccassary tool (in my opinion)..
cheers

mickoking · #18 01-04-2006, 04:11 PM

Finding DSO's is also about training the eye's to see very faint objects. With practice and patience you can see some suprisingly faint objects even from suburban areas.

Mikezoom · #19 02-04-2006, 08:49 AM

It also helps to have 12" of mirror hey Mick?

Mike.

cometcatcher (Kevin) · #20 02-04-2006, 02:09 PM

Not nesser-sallary.

I've picked up M104 in full moonlight in a 5 inch scope, and in new moon times can get a 6 inch scope to see galaxies down to mag 11 or so. Comets to mag 10. Merope and horsehead nebula. They are not bright and far from spectacular but it can be done.

However the fainties are probably not the place to start. Star clusters are a great start and seeing a fuzzy spot next to them can get you interested in finding more down the track. DSO skill doesn't come over night.