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Proper dark adaption: it takes about 30 minutes for the human eye to adjust to the dark to really start to observe LSB objects. The average observing site requires no more time than that. For quite a long time I had my 20" set up in a dome observatory in Coonabarabran and I found that I was able to dark adapt much better than normal due to the restricted view of the night sky. I would be able to navigate the observatory with no problem after a while usually 15-20 minutes having come in after just being outside. once out side the sky would look murky and terrible, then when i went back into the observatory I would bump into things for the next 15 minutes while my eyes adjusted to the conditions in the dome. The reason is that I had to adjust (which I did) to the "darkness of the dome". remember this dome is in rural Coonabarabran where it is DARK by normal standards.
Time to really observe your object as the more you look and observe the more you will see. Not talking about a 2 minutes glance or even a 5 minute consider. When I am trying for FAINT objects I will take up to an hour to decide if I have seen the object or not. I use a hood and an eye patch to keep the observing eye from being effected by the brightness of the Night sky let along any other stray light. This method has alowed me to observe things LSB objects like the galaxy eso270-17, Terzan 9 & 10, Palomar 14, the local group dwarfs AND1 and 2, or S147 the SNR in Taurus.
Try and try again.
Andrew
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