Fiske
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 03/14/04
Posts: 2057
Loc: Missouri / United States
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While making detailed side by side comparisons of Nikon 10x42mm SE and 8x42mm LX binoculars last night, I decided to include observations of M57 to see how significant the 2x advantage would be in detecting M57 as a non-stellar object. The result was unexpected.
First, M57 was easily visible in both the 8x and 10x42mm binoculars -- as a stellar object. The naked-eye limiting magnitude at the site was in the neighborhood of 6.4 mag.
I also had my 20x80s along, in which M57 was easily detected as non-stellar. It appeared as part of a small triangular asterism (arrows in diagram below). The star sizes in the diagram do not accurately reflect the magnitude of the stars involved. The two with arrows pointing to them were more prominent than other nearby stars and were similar in magnitude to M57.
The star on the upper left has several fainter, close companions. This was easy to see in the 20x80s and even easier in my TV-101. In 8x and 10x binoculars, however, the small group of stars gave the appearance of a non-stellar object (the fainter ones could not be resolved).
After studying the field carefully, I was forced to conclude that what I previously identified as M57 is actually this small clump of stars. M57 merely looks stellar to me in 8x and 10x binoculars. 
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Fiske Miles
Nikon 8x42 LX / 12x50 SE Binos
Mini Borg 60ED, TV-101, AT80Ach, XT-8, C11/CI-700, 22-Inch Dob
Way too many Nagler eyepieces
http://www.fiskemiles.blogspot.com/
www.fiskemiles.com
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EdZ
Professor EdZ
Reged: 02/15/02
Posts: 12581
Loc: Cumberland, R I , USA42N71.4W
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Thanks for the heads up on that potential confusion. I'll look for this item next chance I get, see if I can confirm. My backyard site sometimes gets as good as mag 5.6 to 5.7. I'll give it a go this weekend.
edz
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Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards.
member#21
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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I was looking in that region last night, but not with my 7x50 binos. I might try tonight to see what I can see, but being so close to Boston, the dark sky mag is quite limited. Not sure off hand what it is...
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Scott Beith
SRF
Reged: 11/26/03
Posts: 33057
Loc: Gulfport, MS
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Fiske,
Good clarification Sir. Good research skills also. If it ever stops raining, I will make the attempt in my 8x42's and 11x56's.
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  Scott
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke.
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell
"The measure of a man’s greatness is not determined by what he accomplishes for himself, but by what he accomplishes for others.” -- Some Bald Guy
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AJTony
sage
Reged: 04/17/04
Posts: 379
Loc: Hamilton Square, NJ
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Good report.
I tried 7X and 10X. With my sky conditions, couldn't see it at 7X, but at 10X, M57 was stellar.
With Canon 15 X 50, seen as non-stellar. With my 25 X 100 binos, easily resolved as non-stellar.
AJ
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Oberwerk BT100-45 Binos
Apogee 25 X 100 Binos
Canon 15 X 50 IS Binos
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Tom Trusock
Reged: 02/26/02
Posts: 27405
Loc: Alternate Reality (TM)
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7x40, 8x42, and 10x50 - Stellar
12x50 and 15x70 non-stellar.
Tom T.
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There are two theories to arguing with my wife. Neither one works.
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Scott Beith
SRF
Reged: 11/26/03
Posts: 33057
Loc: Gulfport, MS
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11x56???
Couldn't tell it from the stars in my light polluted front yard.
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Scott
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke.
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell
"The measure of a man’s greatness is not determined by what he accomplishes for himself, but by what he accomplishes for others.” -- Some Bald Guy
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EdZ
Professor EdZ
Reged: 02/15/02
Posts: 12581
Loc: Cumberland, R I , USA42N71.4W
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Nikon Action Extremes 8x40, 10x50 and 12x50.
8x40 stellar, couldn't tell which was M57 had to look it up on charts.
10x50 stellar, knew which one it was after looking it up
12x50 just beyond stellar, seemed to be a slighly out of focus star in the field
15x70s and 16x70s clearly seen as nonstellar diffuse circle
edz
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Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards.
member#21
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Lew Zealand
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 06/28/04
Posts: 768
Loc: Pasadena, CA
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I assume that these observations are done attached to a tripod.
Handheld, I haven't seen it from the mag 4 LP backyard in Minolta WP.FP. 10x50s but I saw it as stellar in the Oberwerk 15x70s Sat nite. I also saw M27, The Dumbbell, in the 15x70s for the first time last night. Also saw M4 in binocs (15x70s) for the first time in the backyard (really bad LP to the South). Woo-hoo, the Obies are great!
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EdZ
Professor EdZ
Reged: 02/15/02
Posts: 12581
Loc: Cumberland, R I , USA42N71.4W
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yep, all mounted.
Tried several times with elbows on lounge chair and didn't get as good results.
edz
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Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards.
member#21
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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I tried my Focus 7x21 from my mag 5.5 backyard.
Couldn't se it, but all visible stars looked quite non-stellar in them.
With lots of concentration and eye-strain I could se the brighter single stars in the center of the field as fairly pinpoint double stars though. If you have a pair like mine the only advice I can give is don't use them.
But maybe I got a lemon.
I'm really looking forward to receiving my pair of Oberwerk 15x70.
I got a pair two weeks ago but I had to send them back to Kevin for a replacement.
I hope to get some better views soon.
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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M57 in larger binos is also quite nice. This is off topic so I apologize, but I trained my BT100 at 63x on M57 and I saw for the first time the green-ish ghostly glow not as a disc, but as a torus or donut. Most definitely non-stellar.
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Fiske
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 03/14/04
Posts: 2057
Loc: Missouri / United States
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Last month I was messing about with the 8x42s in my backyard and noticed that the Cat's Eye nebula in Draco (NGC????) is easily detectable as a stellar object despite considerable light pollution. It's obviously brighter than M57. Hunting this down is a fun project -- good for starhopping skills, etc.
Also, from some of the responses above it, seems like 12x is a fairly common breaking point for seeing M57 as non-stellar. Interesting.
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Fiske Miles
Nikon 8x42 LX / 12x50 SE Binos
Mini Borg 60ED, TV-101, AT80Ach, XT-8, C11/CI-700, 22-Inch Dob
Way too many Nagler eyepieces
http://www.fiskemiles.blogspot.com/
www.fiskemiles.com
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BarrySimon615
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 03/01/04
Posts: 918
Loc: New Orleans, LA
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Last weekend I finally did get a chance to see what could be seen (or not) in respect to M57 from a dark site.
Our club site is about 60 miles north of New Orleans. While not nearly the equivalent of a western site at altitude (Davis Mtns - Texas Star Party), it does offer 6.2 to 6.4 magnitude stars at the zenith on a good night. Last Saturday night was about as good as it gets at this site in the summer.
Binoculars used were 20x100 Miyauchis (which easily showed M57 with all eyepieces from the 20x up to the 37x) and 3 pair of 10x50 binoculars including Nikon Action Extreme, Pentax PCF V, and Orion UltraView. The binoculars were not mounted but they were pretty well braced using the side and roof of my Jeep Liberty. In short, I had no luck identifying M57 with any of these three binoculars. I knew exactly where to look, but cannot honestly say I saw anything that looked any different from a typical star. Certainly if I were not familiar with M57 and were slowly scanning this area I would have gone right over M57 without suspecting anything. With the 20x100 binoculars, it would (and did) easily catch my eye with a slow scan and a happenstance discovery.
Remembering what it looked like in the 20x100's, I feel confident that I would be able to pick it up in either 16x70 or 16x60 binoculars.
Barry Simon
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Sooon
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 08/19/04
Posts: 1036
Loc: Lausanne, Switzerland
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I also tried this tonight:
Nikon CF action VI 7x50 stellar
Canon IS 10x30 stellar
As a sidenote, I was really surprised how the 3x more magnification of the Canons did surpassed the extra 20mm aperture of the Nikons.
Sooon
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Philippe
Tele Vue 102 / Losmandy GM8
Tele Vue 76 / Tele Vue Panoramic
Meade ETX 90
Coronado PST
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