what am i looking at?

[blink138]

hello members
i am only on my third night out with my new setup and for several reasons i have not attached all of the goto on my g11, so i am just pushing the scope manually at present
now i am pretty sure i have located eta carinae visually just above our cross
but i spotted some other cloud a little further south west(?) seemed to be directly under sirius
i had a meade sw 24.5mm lens and an lp filter and in the same field there seemed to be a smaller fuzzie at 3 and another at 6
looking at the A S&T chart the only nebula that seemed to be in the correct position was in the LMC! however there was no hint at all of another galaxy or other stars around it in inner city perth
what do you think it was and realistically what can i expect to see visually any chance at the brighter galaxies?
pat

[Robh]

Hi Pat,

Looks like you're enjoying some viewing with your scope.
I gather you mean Canopus rather than Sirius, which perhaps means you were looking at the LMC (a satellite galaxy) and maybe the Tarantula Nebula and and/or some other feature in this galaxy. if you went further south-west, you may have been looking at the SMC and the globular cluster 47 Tuc.

Regards, Rob

[blink138]

thanks rob
you may be right about canopus, whatever the really bright star was it was right at the zenith
it would really surprise me if it was the tarantula because i would have thought there would have been some hint of the surrounding galaxy but there was none
i will try and have another look tonight with a star chart
thanks rob
pat

[ZeroID]

Ahah ! Your curiousity has been piqued !! :D Excellent, you are now officially hooked. Please prepare your wallet.

Get Stellarium, it's free .... :thumbsup:

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Pat
That sounds like a rather sophisticated set up and should be great. I assume you are looking through a C11 with a 24.5mm eyepiece. In which case the FOV would be only about half a degree. In which case you would only see the core of Eta Carina and the only a small portion of the LMC. I doubt whether the objects you see have been correctly identified. If you have a planetarium program like Stellarium you will able to frame a 30 arc second view of these objects to see what you are actually looking at.

Once you get the rest of the drive mechanism attatched and do a polar alinment that setup will open up the world of the stars and you will be really hooked. What sort of a GOTO are you using. Have you got the gemini. or the standard drive.

Barry

[[1ponders]]

Hi Pat. Its fun isn't it :D

I've attached a couple of screen dumps from Starry Night at around 10 oclock at night. The first one shows the Zenith position (small broken red circle) and you can see the relative positions of Sirius (near top of image) and Canopus. The second image looks closer to the south with a smaller FOV. You can see that the LMC is almost directly below (south) of Canopus. At a guess i would agree that it was the Tarantula Nebula you saw.

I've also include a widefield shot using a 135mm lens that may help you work out where you were looking.

Good luck

[Paddy]

Hi Pat,

Sounds like the LMC. If you want to find what's what it the plethora of LMC objects, you might find the printable charts at my web site http://cloudsofmagellan.net.au/ helpful. There will be plenty in the LMC to keep you going with a C11 for a long time.

[blink138]

wow thanks a lot guys i am overwhelmed with your help as it was my first night out
i bought the g11 off our iis mate leon (thanks leon) so it is gemini equipped
brent - yep wallet is gasping 20% off tv @bintel is gonna be a whole world o hurt
barry - i do have stelarium on my work computer but no laptop for outside and i didnt mention i had an f6.3 reducer attached i will look into this "framing" on the stellarium also
paul - your great that is very helpful and the camera shot is spot on i can see were i am looking now
paddy - your website is on my desktop now
a year ago i had cause to ask one of our members a question and he said to me that however unusual or no matter how bizare the question is that there is a member that has already done it! how true that is
pat

[ZeroID]

Excellent !! And I can vouch for Paddys SMC & LMC charts. I am working my way through them as time and clouds will allow. I've printed them all out on A3 (with extras) and have a folder with them all half folded into. Stellarium is great but sometimes the representation does not quite show what the eye really sees.