Stepping out of the shadows

[Soldant]

Hi guys, I've been watching IceInSpace for a while. I signed up when iceman advertised it over on GameArena, but around the same time I was heavily involved in another community which demanded my attention, so pretty much every other forum went on hold except for it and GA. Long story short, that forum collapsed and I've decided that I'm going to try to become more active here.

I only have a small 6" reflector, and I'd love to have some awesome picture of the moon or something with this post, except my camera seems to be of terrible quality when it comes to things like that. I usually perfer to observe with 10x50 binoculars. My favourite objects are the brighter nebulae and open star clusters. I'm still very new to astronomy and I learn something everyday by reading posts from here.

Okay I'm out of ideas on what else to say, except for Hi

[asimov (John)]

Hi Soldant, & welcome to this great forum! Tell us a bit about yourself and your astro-gear....were all ears..

[iceman (Mike)]

Member # 13, you are oldskool I remember you signing up after I started up the forums and was spamming about them on GameArena

Welcome back, great to have you here and hope to see you around more regularly!

Nothing wrong with a 6" reflector either - what type is it?

[acropolite (Phil)]

Soldant; another lurker and member #13 too. You've come to the right place; I hope it wasn't Mike who killed off the GA forum.. (anyone remember the AOL forum????)....

[trufflehunter]

Welcome Soldant! A 6" reflector is a great bit of gear! DOB or equatorial?

[RAJAH235]

Hi Soldant. L.

[ving (David)]

hi and welcome aboard.... member #13!!!

thats gotta be some sorta lurking record!

[Soldant]

#13? Ouch. I must be unlucky Thanks for the warm welcome guys!

The scope is a newt reflector on a equitoral mount, nothing special, does exactly as I want it to. I would have liked to get something bigger, but don't have the room (too much other junk lying around). No complaints except for the finder scope, which is horrible.

Bit more about myself: I'm a simple student who works far too much with computers. Build them, break them, push them beyond their limits, whatever works. I'm in Brisbane, and right now I'm sick of rain. Everywhere around where I live is saturated and some places are flooded.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Hey another SE-Qlder. Belated to the crowd. If it fines up this weekend, and it will you are more than welcome to bring your reflector along and join us up near Kenilworth for an evening of dark sky viewing. If you have not seen it already, see the thread here http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ead.php?t=2413

[ving (David)]

and you queenslanders are quite welcome to come to saturdays "western sydney IIS observing night"

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Originally Posted by ving

and you queenslanders are quite welcome to come to saturdays "western sydney IIS observing night"

Only if it stops raining and we don't sink in the grassy patches. Its all mud and water up here at present, isn't it beautiful

[dhumpie]

Welcome Soldant. Nothing wrong with a 6" EQ reflector. I too observe with such a piece of equipment and have yet to exhause all there is to see with a 6" (and I have logged 510 objects to date...just DSO's). And a 6" shows heaps of not so subtle detail in globs (too many to name but some of the nicely to fully resolved standouts : Omega Centauri, 47 Tucana, Ara glob, Pavo Glob. M22, M55, M13m M4, M10, M12, M5....the list goes on) and the brighter galaxies (M31, M33, M83, NGC 253). Anyway keep the post coming.

Darren

[dhumpie]

And you can also hunt some of the more elusive "starlike" planetaries if you have a UHC or OIII filters from the burbs..my current burb observing project. Amazing how deep you can go from mag 5.4-5.6 skies. Mag 13 stars are easy

Darren

[Soldant]

I'd love to go to that, but getting there is the problem. Thanks for the invite though

dhumpie: Actually, I haven't seen a planetary nebula or a galaxy yet. Heh, I feel stupid now On that subject, does anyone have any suggestions for any in the sky around this time that would be good for a beginner to hunt down?

[cristian abarca]

Hi Soldant I too have a 6 inch reflector and I have found that looking at the constellation Scorpius will yield some nice Messier objects and Scorpius is out at a reasonable time at the moment. I have used Cartel du ciel to star hop around 30 or so messier objects many of them planetary nebulas.

Regards Cristian

[dhumpie]

Hi Soldant,

Since you have a 10x50 binoculars, you are ready for star hopping. The easiest hops now are around the southern cross (Crux), Centaurus, Carina, Scorpius and Sagittarius. If you are familliar with the constellations, Crux will yield the Jewel Box open cluster, Centaurus Omega Centauri globular cluster (resolvable to the core with a 6"), Scorpius M6 and M7 open clusters at the stingers of the scorpion and globular M22 (also resolvable to the core) at the head of the teapot in Sagittarius as well as some nebula's M8 (Lagoon nebula) and M17 (swan nebula). For planetaries if you stay up late enough there are M57 the Ring Nebula in Lyra that is easy to find as is M27 the dumbbell nebula in Vulpecula. Galaxies are a little harder if you are observing from the burbs. But with practise, you should be able to hunt down mag 10 galaxies from mag 5.4-5.6 skies like me. Current "easy" (taken with a pinch of salt) galaxies are M83 in Hydra (use very low powers...best views for me are at approx. 46x with the 32mm Plossl). Do you have star maps to guide you? If not I can recommend Phil Harrington's Skywatch (should be available in your local Dymocks, QBD or Angus and Robertson Bookworld). Very good book for beginning starhoppers. Alternatively if you can get your hands on Turn Left at Orion, that is another good one.

Hope that helps.

Darren

p/s: you can check out how some of these DSO's look at my web site. I have sketched close to 300 objects to date!
http://www.geocities.com/dhumpie/dastro/dss.htm

[astroron (Ron)]

Hi Soldant, welcome to iis, if you carn't make it up to here on the weekend see if you can get out to the Queensland ASTROFEST which runs from Monday the first of August to Sunday the seventh,look on this website for posts on QLD AstroFest. best of luck in you new hobbie. astroron

[Soldant]

I've seen a few of the objects you've listed dhumpie except for a few of the globular clusters. The Lagoon is one of my favourite objects, probably because it was the first one I found . I use Starry Night Backyard (I refuse to buy 5, wasn't impressed with the trial version) for printing out star charts and finding pretty much all of the objects I like to look at. Unfortunately I think M57 is blocked by trees (my house backs onto a park, lovely tall trees from SW-N), same with M27 . I'll definately try for the M83 though, and I'll keep an eye out for those books, thanks for the advice

astroron: I'll keep that in the back of my mind and see if I can make it, thanks

[dhumpie]

Soldant,

If you are interested in planetaries (I know I am , M57 and M27 are the best planetary nebula's to look at from suburbia (and you get a good look with a 6" scope). M57 shows its ring structure while M27 shows its classic apple core shape. If you have a nebular filter it becomes more boxed shaped. There are several other planetaries at this time of the year, some of them show a small disc with no internal structure. One of the nicer small planetaries is the southern ring NGC 3132 in Carina/Vela but that sets pretty early. It shows even illumination at 300x in my 6" and is one of the prettier planetaries around. Then there is the blue planetary in Centaurus which also shows a small disc (smaller than 3132). It really appears blue! Can't remember the number but it is to the right of Crux. Other notables include the bug nebula (NGC 6302 I think) in Scorpius and NGC 5189, the spiral planetary in Musca. The bug planetary does really resemble a squashed bug in the 6" while 5189 does look like it has spiral arms. These are some of the ones you should look out for. And the best part is that they are not that much affected by light pollution as they are compact and have high surface brightness.

Cheers,
Darren

p/s: I am also planning for Astrofest so if you are coming, see you there! Pity I can't make it to Ron's this weekend. astro_south invited me but I am currently back home in Malaysia.

[Soldant]

Thanks for the tips, I'll note these next time I'm outside