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Would you count everything visible with averted vision?

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Always. The limits of every binocular are always found in what can be seen with averted vision. If you don't test to the averted limit, you are never finding the limit. You might see stars at the limit of magnitude reach for only 5-10 seconds out of each minute you look at the spot.

I have two other charts, one for Cr399 and one for M45, that I originally developed just for doing star counts. later, both charts were detailed with the magnitude of all the individual stars on the chart. I haven't yet developed my M44 chart that far. But I know from experience and from research what some of the counts represent.

Once you've used a chart and get to know the patterns, star counts are easy. I know this chart so well, having used it so many times, that I can draw a sketch of about 70-80 stars in M44 from memory. I could put another 30-40 on the chart to show the dense areas, but they wouldn't be accurately placed. I'd say it takes me no more than 2-3 minutes to count 40-50 stars in any 7x50 - 10x50. But I could spend another 5 minutes more to scan around with averted vision to see if any stars more pop into view. So the first 40-50 take 2 minutes, the last 2 or 3 take 5 minutes.

edz

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