Unencumbered by Knowledge II

Greetings qand apologies.

AT the tender age of 50 I have taken up Deep Sky Observing as an avocation. I am secretly hoping that I might have the favor of an answer to this admittedly naive quetsion. Thank you in advance!

I have been searching for M101 and M57 for all of the recent observable evenings in Boxford, MA (Hmm...3 nights?). My principle scope is a C8 Deluxe AAM. Several weeks ago I managed to find and photograph M57, which to my great surprise turned out rather well! I have been frustrated byt my lack of success with 2 objrects that I would suspect are either in the same class as M57 or easier.

Suspecting that my difficulties might be related to my setup skills, I took my Nexstar 4 out last night (7/13/03) and decided to "punk out" and get a glimpse of either one with computer assistance. Threatened by mosquito-induced exsanguination, I aligned on Altair and Vega and Dubhe. I punched in M101 and M57 and was dissapointed once again. I reset the scope and realigned with the same [lack of] results. To test the alignment I slewed to Dubhe, Mizar, Alcor all with good success. These stars appeared in a 26mm plossl and tracked there just fine thanks. Finally I punched in M57 and bingo, in the field of view.

To be fair, I did see some stars in the target fields, but nothing that approached the grey fuzzy (as in M57)

I am guessing that there are several possibilites to explain my startlingly repeatable observations). 1) misalignment, probably not but then why can I not find them?, excess ambient light, Full moon, some house lights on, but I could see M57 easy-peasy., An evil spirit lodged under the secondary.

I would truely appreciate any constructive suggestions on what I am doing wrong or on where to find a priest qualified to exercise demons.

If I understand you correctly, you've been able to goto and see M57, but not M101. Sounds like your alignment and setup is OK. With respect to M101 you've got two things going against you: M101's presentation is face-on, and it's large, so even though it's listed as a fairly bright object, magnitude 8 or so, the light is spread over a large area, so it appears pretty dim. That makes it a difficult object, requiring dark skies. But this week that dimness is competing with the light of the full moon.

Try M101 again in a week or so before the waning moon rises. Good luck!

You aren't going to see M101 with a full moon, at least not very easily. M57 is pretty bright (partly because it is small) by faint fuzzy standards. You could get M81 and 82, but not to enjoy. Dark sky are worth a lot for deep sky.

I grew up in Ipswich by the way (and at 51 I must be more or less contemporary), and while Boxford was pretty rural then, I wounder what your light pollution is like like now. Where I live in Putney VT, it's still pretty dark.

Best of luck!

I find M101 to be a stubborn target under ~5.5 magnitude skies -- at least in a longer scope (i.e. moderate-to-high magnification).

Luna's brilliance will impact M101's visibility, for sure. Now that she's waning, you might have better luck before midnight.

M101 is indeed huge -- you're hunting a faint fuzzy that's about the same diameter as Luna herself. (M57, by comparison, is *tiny*.) I usually start with low magnification (to find M101), then try to move in for a closer look.

Best wishes and luck.
-Dan

I LOVE this forum. Thank you all for the consensus opinion on this. To be sure lasy night was so light that the even the Groveland ClearSky Clock said that there was n darkness...

I am gratified to learn a bit about apparent magnitude. With a mag of 8 something I would have guessed that 101 would have been reasonably visible. Are magnitudes then a measure of the entire object as a function of area? Sort of an integrated optical density?

Thanks again, I am renewed in my determination!

M57 is quite easy if you look in the right spot. You can see it with binoculars of 10x or more.

M101 is much easier with binoculars than it is with a telescope. Look in the right spot with binoculars and stare until you see just a FAINT smoke cloud. That's it. With the telescope do the same thing with the lowest power you have.

M101 also requires a dark night with no Moon. It's a tough one but once you know what to expect you can see it regularly. It is very faint but large. You will see the same kind of thing with M33 in another month, although it is a little easier than M101.

Check out M63 which is just a short hop from M57.

I've been into astronomy since I was 5 years old. But I got my first real telescope 2 years ago at age 50. Welcome to the club!



Daryl

Yes this is great stuff! No shame in being 50+! It only means a bigger cake!

I am an anatomist and neurophysiologist and one very important observation regarding thinking and memory in adults is that EXPERIENCE AND CHALLENGE ARE SELF-PRESERVING. If you gorm out in front of the TV you are accelerating your descent into nothingness. SO a new and challenging (menatally, physically and spiritually!) avocation is literally "just what the doctor ordered"!

Thank you all for the excellent support and suggestions. Now about those clouds...