Help Needed In Finding Planetary Nebulas.

[RobF (Rob)]

That's the beauty of it though - as long you you feel like a young kid with an ice cream cone, its enough to be just having fun whatever it is you're exploring or trying at that moment....
(whether that's learning the sky through a dob or taking postcards with a camera)

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by marki

Large aperture counts for little in light polluted cities, what do you get? A better view of the street lights. A small scope with a camera will always reveal more celestial delights in the city than a large scope using the mark I eyeball. Unlike the others I don't think using a camera is cheating nor do I accept the "darkside" label. If anything you would be moving to the bright side i.e. you can actually see something .

Mark

A camera, like any other instrument (including the Mark 1 eyeball), is just another means of observing. It's not cheating, and if using a good camera like a GStar allows you to see more than you normally would, then all the better for it

So Suzy, get that GStar or whatever one you like and get to looking

[Suzy]

I feel that pull again I'm going back to that site yet again to check out the gstar thingy. Whichever I go, I am having so much fun! Marki does make a good point.

[renormalised (Carl)]

You also have the ImageSource DBK/DMK cameras as well, or the Flea3

[RobF (Rob)]

I'm sure Jeanette would be happy to show you her GStar in action one night if you asked too S
(apologies JJJ if you no longer have one...)

[renormalised (Carl)]

Jeanette still has one, I believe.

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Originally Posted by Suzy

No Steven, Can't see the SMC. I can see the Tarrantula Neb, but not the LMC that it resides in. I have given up trying to find galaxies from my back yard. Each time i get packed up ready to go to a dark site, the weather changes drastically.

Suzy, the LMC is enormous, compared to the Tarantula. When you scan the surrounds of the Spider, and you notice all the mottling and clusters that surround it, you are looking into the LMC.

The best way to see the LMC and SMC is with binos. They are too big to apprieciate with a telescope.

I use 50mm binoculars to locate some of the brighter galaxies, like Sombrero and M83. From a dark site, even Centaurus A is visible in a 6X30 finder!

Back to the theme of this thread, try planetaries neat through a scope. Filters a fine, but you will still see them without filters. The planetary I suggested near the Southern Cross is bright enough to view even now during full moon. The added plus is that it is not too near to the moon either. Try for it this weekend. I know you will find it.

[astroron (Ron)]

Suzy, sell your telescope, and buy some astronomy DVD's with lots of beautiful Picture and sit in your lounge room and watch them with a nice warm/cold cup of something.
You will get the same effect as with the camera's, but without the cost of telescope , eyepeices warm clothes and other things we need to do for observing,you will miss the discomfort of the Mozzies, cold nights . hot nights.
Most astro imagers never look through their telescopes, after all, all they are only Telephoto lenses when attached to a camera.
Whilst you are faffing about with polar alignment, cable, focus, computers and other parafanailia? the night sky is rotating and the wonders are lost in the glaire of the bright lights, Red and white,also computer glaire
Then your core begins temperature rising because this thing or that is not working, and you have wasted a whole night for very little gain and you have seen nothing
Just a few points to help you decide about going down the imaging road

[renormalised (Carl)]

Easy save there, Ron....two scopes. One for piccies, one for lookies

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Easy save there, Ron....two scopes. One for piccies, one for lookies

As I said MOST astro imagers never look through thier scopes, there may be some but not many

[RobF (Rob)]

Fair go Ron - we haven't all got easy access to your clean fresh air and beautiful dark Cambroon skies - not to mention that 16" dob

Next best thing on my surburban patio is a beer while waiting for the qhy9 to cut through Stefan's sky needle light polution.
I always dig out my eyepiece case when there's visitors over too - honest!

[renormalised (Carl)]

True, and I think you loose something by not having any visual experience.

Most professional astronomers have never looked through a telescope...many of them can't find their way around the night sky, which is something you'd think they'd be able to do.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Suzy

No Steven, Can't see the SMC. I can see the Tarrantula Neb, but not the LMC that it resides in. I have given up trying to find galaxies from my back yard. Each time i get packed up ready to go to a dark site, the weather changes drastically.

It's appears to be worse than my observing site when I lived in Melbourne. The SMC was invisible, the LMC was barely visible.

From your backyard the UHC filter will help, but the OIII will do a better job on planetaries.

Regards

Steven

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by astroron

As I said MOST astro imagers never look through thier scopes, there may be some but not many

As an astro imager are you telling me you can look through them.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

As an astro imager are you telling me you can look through them.

YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
I DID NOT MEAN AT THE SAME TIME AS YOU ARE IMAGING

[ngcles]

Hi Suzy, Steve, John & All,

Re: the opposing views of Steve and John on the use of OIII -v- UHC in small apertures. My experience leads me to agree with John's posts on this issue 100% and I really can't add anything useful to them. (I seem lately to be endorsing what Bamo advises here on IIS quite a bit, but here again, I believe he is right on the money. )

For visual use in 'scopes <25cm go for the UHC. Same goes for the very narrow band-pass H-Beta filters -- you need significant aperture at the right exit pupil for them to work well in my experience. If you've got 10"+, buy the UHC first and the others later if you feel you need them. I've got 1 1/4" OIII and UHC, 2" UHC & H-Beta.


Best,

Les D

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by ngcles

Hi Suzy, Steve, John & All,

Re: the opposing views of Steve and John on the use of OIII -v- UHC in small apertures. My experience leads me to agree with John's posts on this issue 100% and I really can't add anything useful to them. (I seem lately to be endorsing what Bamo advises here on IIS quite a bit, but here again, I believe he is right on the money. )

For visual use in 'scopes <25cm go for the UHC. Same goes for the very narrow band-pass H-Beta filters -- you need significant aperture at the right exit pupil for them to work well in my experience. If you've got 10"+, buy the UHC first and the others later if you feel you need them. I've got 1 1/4" OIII and UHC, 2" UHC & H-Beta.

Anyone care to place a bet.

The primary objective of any LPR filter is enhancement. A LPR filter is only as good as the brightness/darkness of the sky background.

The brightness of the sky background is related to the exit pupil not the aperture. The larger the exit pupil the brighter the background.

Exit pupil = aperture/magnification.

Let's suppose I have a 250mm aperture scope at 50X magnification.
The exit pupil is 250mm/50 =5.0mm.

A Lumicon OIII is designed to operate in the exit pupil range 2-5mm in light polluted skies.

Doubling the aperture will not improve image enhancement, it will be in fact be a lot worse as the exit pupil = 500mm/50 =10mm.
The background is now so bright that image contrast is lost.
I need to double the magnification as well. Since increasing magnification
spreads out the photon flux from an extended object, I'm not gaining anything by increasing aperture.

As I mentioned in a previous post, using a larger aperture will result in more stars in the background.

Regards

Steven

[Liz]

Originally Posted by mental4astro

Suzy, the LMC is enormous, compared to the Tarantula. When you scan the surrounds of the Spider, and you notice all the mottling and clusters that surround it, you are looking into the LMC.

The best way to see the LMC and SMC is with binos. They are too big to apprieciate with a telescope.

I use 50mm binoculars to locate some of the brighter galaxies, like Sombrero and M83. From a dark site, even Centaurus A is visible in a 6X30 finder!

Back to the theme of this thread, try planetaries neat through a scope. Filters a fine, but you will still see them without filters. The planetary I suggested near the Southern Cross is bright enough to view even now during full moon. The added plus is that it is not too near to the moon either. Try for it this weekend. I know you will find it.

Whooaa ... whats this thread been up to while I have sleeping in my bed??
Suzy, some great info re filters, but you have bought one, so dont worry about any more for awhile. Add it to next years list.
Re cameras - give it a miss for awhile too. Down the track it may be something to look into. Most of us give it a go, but they can be fiddly and frustrating.
Follow Alex's train of thought, go for that PN, and I will too, though may wait a few days for Moon to quieten. Theres a lot out there to observe!!

[renormalised (Carl)]

Suzy...caaaaaaammmmerrrrrraaaaaa!!!

[Lismore Bloke (Paul)]

Suzy - keep the faith - resist the call to the Dark Side.
You don't need a caaaaaammmmeeeerrrrraaa!