Views through a 6'

[WestAusChris]

Hi All

Been away for a while tryingout the 6' Dob but to be honest i cant see anything lol

Dont know if its me or not.

I live in a rual area with no light or pollution, i can see jupiter and its moons just fine but other than that thats all i see, every other thing i look at just looks like a bright star.

Maybe its because its only a 6' dob and i need bigger or that im still new and dont know what to look at.

Have heard of people using just an 90mm scope and can see colour in things.

[Liz]

Hmmm ... a 6" can see lots of goodies, so something else going on.
Dare I say the dreaded word .... collimation .... is it OK?

[that_guy]

:lol: i saw 6' dob and i was like :eek: dats a big telescope haha... but if your talking about a 6", they are a great beginner aperture that would give you years of awesome views. You should be able to see Orion nebula, Eta Car, 47 tuc, omega cen and much much more DSOs, even faint galaxies in a dark sight. you can also see nebulas as a cloudy patch, i dont think i ever saw a nebula that looked like a star :shrug: even through binos or the finder, they are faint and cloudy.

just my 2 c worth
cheers
tony

[WestAusChris]

Hmmm maybe im just not looking at the tight places in the sky Tony lol :)

Liz as far as i know collimation is ok, was told the easiest way it to check is to focus on a bright star then slowly take it out of focus, if it looks like a nice round donut the collimation is ok??

[Screwdriverone]

Hey Chris,

Here is a test of a nebula for you. Something that will be EASY for you to find and MAY show some colour.....but might just be grey to your eye, namely M42 - Great Orion Nebula.

No doubt you know what Orion looks like, it is the big constellation to the north - north west at the moment just after sunset and you should be able to see an asterism that looks like a saucepan, with a square base and a 45 degree angled handle. If you point your scope to the MIDDLE star on that 45 degree handle, you should see a fuzzy patch through the finder scope and then a bigger cloudy area through say a 10mm or 25mm eyepiece.

This is one of the biggest and easiest Nebulae to find and if you're collimation is OK, you should be able to make out a set of 4 stars in the middle of the cloudy bit, which is called the Trapezium cluster and these actually power the glow that is given to the surrounding Nebula.

Give that a try and tell us if you have any luck. Shouldnt take more than 30 seconds or so to track it down and point the dob to the right spot. Just make sure the finder and the main scope are pointed at the same spot (use Jupiter as something to help you line up the two) and then use the finder to point to the fuzzy star in the middle of the saucepan's handle to track down the nebula.

It is actually visible with the naked eye as a fuzzy patch so if you can see this first without a scope (and your dark skies suggest you should be able to) then hone in with the scope and you will be in for a treat.

M42 is one of the closest star forming regions in our galaxy to our solar system and is around 1500 light years away from Earth. Very cool.

Let us know how you go and we can suggest some other cool things to look at. I have a link to a star chart PDF which is great for printing out to help with narrowing things down visually and star hopping to galaxies and the like.

FYI, I have seen M104 - the sombrero galaxy with my 130mm reflector, from my back yard in Sydney, so a 150mm dob from dark skies would easily pull this in. Just have to know where to look.

Good luck

Cheers

Chris

[Screwdriverone]

Hi All,

Here is the link (http://sites.google.com/site/southernastronomer/Home/NightSkyObjects2.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1) to that free downloadable star chart that Rob Horvat from WSAAG (my astro club) has created which has some really excellent star charts that I think ALL beginners should have.

Take a look.

Cheers

Chris

[Blue Skies]

Sorry to say that I think its this reason.

But don't despair! You need to give yourself some time to learn how to see up there, and what kind of expectations to have with your scope. Most of the objects up there rarely jump out of the eyepiece at you. There is a lot a subtlety needed and patience training your eye to pick out detail. You can do some good stuff with a 6", you just need to give it a bit more time.

[Brian W]

it is beginning to be my mantra... download Stellarium it is a free planetarium program which will show you what is above you once you punch in some info.

Remember it is a really big sky and you need to know where to look and what to look for.

Brian

[WestAusChris]

Thanks again for all the replies, much appreciated.

Chris, will have a go the next clear night and see if i can find M42 and will post back and let you know how i got on.

Have got Stellarium but have just bought a new laptop so will move all the files over to the new one and will just keep getting out there :)

[renormalised]

My advice....join an astronomy club/society. You'll get to meet new friends and you'll also learn more in one night than you could ever do by yourself.

M42 is the Orion Nebula.....it's the middle hazy patch in the "Sword of Orion".

[AG Hybrid]

Well my first scope was a 6" Reflector. Honestly I found it wasn't much chop from Sydney's LP skies. Its not like a refractor were the awesome contrast helps overcome the LP and bright sky.
Mind you it wasn't bad from a relatively darker sky of Katoomba however.

From a very rural sky a 6"*would probably outperform my 12" by a noticeable amount under a LP sky.