82 replies to this topic

[Jim in PA]

Tonight is cloudy here where i live, so im here at cloudy nights  . I planned to go outside and find M13 with binoculars first and then go with the dob but i think ill have to wait for another night

i was out last night with a pair of 12x50's, observing what effects the layers of wildfire smoke are having.  I've been doing that for the past couple of weeks when it's not cloudy.  I was in a smoke "red zone" per Astrospheric.  My SQM-L readings at zenith averaged 20.34 mpsas, which indicated to me that the smoke was having a significant impact on sky brightness.  It was about 1am EST, no moon yet.  I could see M13, using averted vision helped.

 

I know there is alot of smoke, smog etc over Mexico City, which is surely adding to the challenge.  Keep trying, one of these nights you'll bag it.  In the meantime you'll be accumulating experience which only comes one way, by doing

[Stevegeo]

Must be tough;)

Yea i dont know how you can deal with it..
We have had smoke from fires.. ..arent we lucky

[Researcher]

i was out last night with a pair of 12x50's, observing what effects the layers of wildfire smoke are having.  I've been doing that for the past couple of weeks when it's not cloudy.  I was in a smoke "red zone" per Astrospheric.  My SQM-L readings at zenith averaged 20.34 mpsas, which indicated to me that the smoke was having a significant impact on sky brightness.  It was about 1am EST, no moon yet.  I could see M13, using averted vision helped.

 

I know there is alot of smoke, smog etc over Mexico City, which is surely adding to the challenge.  Keep trying, one of these nights you'll bag it.  In the meantime you'll be accumulating experience which only comes one way, by doing

Thank you, i will try again as soon as i can

[nathantw]

HI everyone

 

Last night i was searching for m13 but i couldnt find it. Is it a hard target to find? Im in a bortle 8 sky and the full moon was up there.

My telescope is a 8" dobsonian.and was scanning the area with a 30mm plossl

I have bortle 7-8 skies and I was able to see the faint hazy cluster even with a full moon through the telescope. I normally use a 40mm eyepiece to find it and zoom in when I get it centered. It's near impossible to find if I didn't have a goto mount since I can only see a couple bright stars in the sky because of the light pollution. I'd use a smartphone app like Stellarium or some other app that can show me which direction to point the camera/telescope. One trick I use to find DSO without a goto mount is to put my DSLR camera on a tripod, increase the ISO to its highest and just take pictures of areas where I think it'll be. I zoom in on the screen until I find what I'm looking for.

 

If you end up taking pictures of it they'll come out pretty well since it's pretty bright. I took the picture with a Nikon D810 and a Celestron Edge HD 8" at prime focal length. 

Edited by nathantw, 11 June 2023 - 06:45 PM.

[Researcher]

I have bortle 7-8 skies and I was able to see the faint hazy cluster even with a full moon. I normally use a 40mm eyepiece to find it and zoom in when I get it centered. If you end up taking pictures of it they'll come out pretty well since it's pretty bright. I took the picture with a Nikon D810 and a Celestron Edge HD 8" at prime focal length. 

Looks amazing!

[nathantw]

Looks amazing!

Thank you. I updated my post but you may not have seen it. Here's what I normally do:

 

It's near impossible to find if I didn't have a goto mount since I can only see a couple bright stars in the sky because of the light pollution. I'd use a smartphone app like Stellarium or some other app that can show me which direction to point the camera/telescope. One trick I use to find DSO without a goto mount is to put my DSLR camera on a tripod, increase the ISO to its highest and just take pictures of areas where I think it'll be. I zoom in on the screen until I find what I'm looking for.

 

Oh, to set your expectation, don't expect to see what I showed in the picture. You should set your expectations really, really low. All you'll see is a really faint, hazy, cotton ball. If you can zoom in with an eyepiece you might be able to pick out some individual stars, but it's not easy. You'll need to really stare into the eyepiece if your seeing conditions are as bad as mine. I'm always excited to see the tiny individual stars and I look at M13 any time I'm out observing. It never gets old.

Edited by nathantw, 11 June 2023 - 06:58 PM.

[Nankins]

M13 is one of the brightest clusters in the northern sky, which should make it much easier to find.  As WillR stated, though, a necessary part of finding it is the ability to see Hercule's Keystone.  If you have binoculars and can get to the rough area you should be able to just pan them around gently and even in Bortle 8 skies that should show you the Keystone.  If you can do that, then pull out your telescope and look for a star-sized ball of fuzz.  

[joehudock]

As an alternative to star hopping for finding M13 you could use astrohopper. To use it you'll need a cell phone. If you have one the only expense is for some velcro to attach the cell phone to the telescope. There is a lot of information on cloudy nights for putting astrohopper on your cell phone and using it. It took me only a few minutes to get a handle on using it.

You can practice during the day time to get familiar with its operation. Then all you need to do is center Vega in your eyepiece, align astrohopper to Vega, use the search function to find M13 and push the telescope to put it in the astrohopper bullseye.

M13 should most likely be in the view through your telescope if your using something like a 25mm or 30mm eyepiece. You may need to nudge the telescope a little to have the moving faint fuzzy catch your eye. If no luck, just go back to Vega and try again.

Of course if you don't have a cell phone then this will be no help whatsoever.

I found astrohopper way easier than star hopping for locating DSOs most of the time.

[edsmx5]

😁 found it!! I didn't even cheat with the Nexstar! Glorious sky, I even got to "kinda" see the Keystone! Tried with the Svbony,but I couldn't get the nose high enough, (Jon, I may need some help with that), so I took out the xt8 with my 28/82, had Stellarium give me the area, and started to pan, two minutes in, there's this big fuzzball!!! I threw in the 14mm, then the 7mm, but still mostly fuzz ( the 7mm didn't show much at all, too jumpy). How low do you need to go for better resolution? Anyway, I FOUND IT!!! ( yay me 😁)

[Chad7531]

😁 found it!! I didn't even cheat with the Nexstar! Glorious sky, I even got to "kinda" see the Keystone! Tried with the Svbony,but I couldn't get the nose high enough, (Jon, I may need some help with that), so I took out the xt8 with my 28/82, had Stellarium give me the area, and started to pan, two minutes in, there's this big fuzzball!!! I threw in the 14mm, then the 7mm, but still mostly fuzz ( the 7mm didn't show much at all, too jumpy). How low do you need to go for better resolution? Anyway, I FOUND IT!!! ( yay me 😁)

You pretty much just need darker skies if the 7mm didn’t resolve any stars in your xt8. Try averted vision and you might be able to resolve a handful. M92 resolves before any of the other current GCs for me in light polluted skies, with averted vision it actually looks like a GC.

Edited by Chad7531, 13 June 2023 - 05:57 AM.

[edsmx5]

You pretty much just need darker skies if the 7mm didn’t resolve any stars in your xt8. Try averted vision and you might be able to resolve a handful. M92 resolves before any of the other current GCs for me in light polluted skies, with averted vision it actually looks like a GC.

I was rushing, maybe only a half-hour total outside (before work); I did have some individual stars at the edges, then just fuzz. I didn't have time to really play, and, to be honest, I was so darn happy that I found it that that was enough for me, for the time being anyway. A half -hour later, and the Moon had really started to wash things out a bit, I'm glad I got out when I did .The reason the Svbony wouldn't go high enough ? Some knucklehead put the scope in the mount backwards ( az-alt on a Bogen tripod) and the handle was hitting, stopping it from going higher . A Noob mistake, its why I'm waiting to take the AT 115 out. I want to be able to take my time with it. Still, I found it, I know where to look, I'll be back. Now, what's next . . . ?

[Chad7531]

I was rushing, maybe only a half-hour total outside (before work); I did have some individual stars at the edges, then just fuzz. I didn't have time to really play, and, to be honest, I was so darn happy that I found it that that was enough for me, for the time being anyway. A half -hour later, and the Moon had really started to wash things out a bit, I'm glad I got out when I did .The reason the Svbony wouldn't go high enough ? Some knucklehead put the scope in the mount backwards ( az-alt on a Bogen tripod) and the handle was hitting, stopping it from going higher . A Noob mistake, its why I'm waiting to take the AT 115 out. I want to be able to take my time with it. Still, I found it, I know where to look, I'll be back. Now, what's next . . . ?

More bright GCs… m53, m3, m5, m92. Nebula… c6, m27, m57. The galaxy m31 will be coming up soon. All of those are just as visible as m13. One of the best, m42 comes up in the fall.

Edited by Chad7531, 13 June 2023 - 07:31 AM.

[WillR]

😁 found it!! I didn't even cheat with the Nexstar! Glorious sky, I even got to "kinda" see the Keystone! Tried with the Svbony,but I couldn't get the nose high enough, (Jon, I may need some help with that), so I took out the xt8 with my 28/82, had Stellarium give me the area, and started to pan, two minutes in, there's this big fuzzball!!! I threw in the 14mm, then the 7mm, but still mostly fuzz ( the 7mm didn't show much at all, too jumpy). How low do you need to go for better resolution? Anyway, I FOUND IT!!! ( yay me 😁)

Congrats, Ed! I am happy you are finding some time to observe this summer. Between the smoke and the rain, I haven't seen even a single star in almost 2 weeks.

 

Here is a drawing I did of M13 earlier this spring, using my 10" and a 1/2 barlowed 7mm for 282X. If you were jumpy with the 7mm, I would say the seeing isn't too good.

 

This year is my first with the larger aperture, and the difference between the 5" and 10" is dramatic. The globs are basically fuzzballs in the 5" and show lots of stars in the 10". I could resolve about a 100 stars. Here is my log entry: "Spectacular!!, best glob yet. Dozens, maybe 100 stars all across the FOV with loops and chains fanning out like wings. Better than photos! 3D!"

 

You'll revisit M13 often and will want to throw as much power on it as the seeing will allow.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[Researcher]

Last night transparency was good, I could see the keystone with naked eye. I took some 10 x 42 binoculars and finally found M13! Very faint but I could see it. I was observing for several minutes in order to get familiar with the aree. If the sky is good tonight I will try to see it with the dob

[Starman1]

Here is approximately what it will look like in an 8", but it will be a lot brighter when you are dark adapted and there is no moon above the horizon:

 

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[Researcher]

Here is approximately what it will look like in an 8", but it will be a lot brighter when you are dark adapted and there is no moon above the horizon:

 

Yesterday while watching trough binoculars I noticed how important is to be dark adapted.

 

So tonight I was watching Porrima and double double while waiting for be well dark adapted, just when I was ready for search M13 I suddenly saw a satellite passing by, I followed it and suddenly I saw a fuzzy ball, I was sure it wasn't M13 cause I was watching at the north of Hércules, to my surprise I found M92! It was totally an amazing coincidence, like if someone sent that satellite just to made me discover M92, it's amazing 

I was observing for several minutes until clouds came, so I will wait for another night for see M13

[Slip]

Yesterday while watching trough binoculars I noticed how important is to be dark adapted.

 

So tonight I was watching Porrima and double double while waiting for be well dark adapted, just when I was ready for search M13 I suddenly saw a satellite passing by, I followed it and suddenly I saw a fuzzy ball, I was sure it wasn't M13 cause I was watching at the north of Hércules, to my surprise I found M92! It was totally an amazing coincidence, like if someone sent that satellite just to made me discover M92, it's amazing 

I was observing for several minutes until clouds came, so I will wait for another night for see M13

I first saw M92 a few days ago myself.  I usually have to wait a bit until it clears a palm tree. When I saw the stars over the Palm tree, I point my finder in the general direction and found it quickly in the eyepiece with a little bit of scanning.  I love these Globular Clusters and M92 is one of my favorites. 

 

Aloha and Clear Skies. 

[ninelives]

M13 is one of my favorite targets. Once, several years ago, I had an opportunity to backpack to a very remote high elevation area with essentially zero light pollution. I know right where M13 is so I looked naked eye and sure enough, there it was. I've never seen it that distinct since with naked eye viewing, although it is possible to see naked eye at any decent dark site. 

[Dave Mitsky]

I have bortle 7-8 skies and I was able to see the faint hazy cluster even with a full moon through the telescope. I normally use a 40mm eyepiece to find it and zoom in when I get it centered. It's near impossible to find if I didn't have a goto mount since I can only see a couple bright stars in the sky because of the light pollution. I'd use a smartphone app like Stellarium or some other app that can show me which direction to point the camera/telescope. One trick I use to find DSO without a goto mount is to put my DSLR camera on a tripod, increase the ISO to its highest and just take pictures of areas where I think it'll be. I zoom in on the screen until I find what I'm looking for.

 

If you end up taking pictures of it they'll come out pretty well since it's pretty bright. I took the picture with a Nikon D810 and a Celestron Edge HD 8" at prime focal length. 

The "dark lanes" of the Propeller or Mercedes-Benz emblem and the X of brighter stars above it can be seen in your image.

 

[Dave Mitsky]

Here's an image of M13 that I acquired remotely ten years ago using what was then known as the Bradford Robotic Telescope.  North is up in the image. The three "dark lanes" known as the Propeller can be seen on the left. Two lines of bright stars closer to the center of M13 form an X turned sideways.

With a magnitude of 5.8, M13 is actually the fourth brightest cluster in the northern sky.  M22, M4, and M5 are brighter.

 

https://www.messier-...years on a side.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[Researcher]

Here's an image of M13 that I acquired remotely ten years ago using what was then known as the Bradford Robotic Telescope.  North is up in the image. The three "dark lanes" known as the Propeller can be seen on the left. Two lines of bright stars closer to the center of M13 form an X turned sideways.

With a magnitude of 5.8, M13 is actually the fourth brightest cluster in the northern sky.  M22, M4, and M5 are brighter.

 

https://www.messier-...years on a side.

 

Looks amazing 

[TheChosen]

I observed both M92 and M13 few weeks ago in a Bortle 3.5 and M92 was looking even better. Probably due to the fact that it was higher in the sky, which makes a lot of difference.

 

I also observed M10 and M12 from my balcony in a Bortle 6 few days ago as a test, pretty low in the sky. It was nice to know that the GCs look pretty decent even in a Bortle 6 sky. Our appartment complex on top of everything has about 20 lamps spread around shining light everywhere.

 

I am slowly finding out that light pollution is not as a huge show stopper as I originally thought. I am *by far* much more impacted by the weather around here (constant cloud cover and bad transparency) than light pollution. So much so that I decided to bring my telescope back to the city as it allows me to spend more time with it and utilize any clear nights. I won't be seeing many galaxies and faint nebulas but most of the Messier catalog seems to be well within reach and frankly not all the different than the views in my Bortle 3.5 area.. Also I can always drive for 30 minutes to reach a Bortle 3 sky .. or 10 minutes for a Bortle 4.5

Edited by TheChosen, 16 June 2023 - 08:22 AM.

[Mike Q]

Good old M13, one of those targets i always aim to see. I use a 14 or 20mm 82 degree eyepiece in my 10 inch and it is just beautiful.  Take that 14 over to the 16 inch and it is amazing.  

[Researcher]

I observed both M92 and M13 few weeks ago in a Bortle 3.5 and M92 was looking even better. Probably due to the fact that it was higher in the sky, which makes a lot of difference.

 

I also observed M10 and M12 from my balcony in a Bortle 6 few days ago as a test, pretty low in the sky. It was nice to know that the GCs look pretty decent even in a Bortle 6 sky. Our appartment complex on top of everything has about 20 lamps spread around shining light everywhere.

 

I am slowly finding out that light pollution is not as a huge show stopper as I originally thought. I am *by far* much more impacted by the weather around here (constant cloud cover and bad transparency) than light pollution. So much so that I decided to bring my telescope back to the city as it allows me to spend more time with it and utilize any clear nights. I won't be seeing many galaxies and faint nebulas but most of the Messier catalog seems to be well within reach and frankly not all the different than the views in my Bortle 3.5 area.. Also I can always drive for 30 minutes to reach a Bortle 3 sky .. or 10 minutes for a Bortle 4.5

Im planning to go to a borte 4 site, i guess it is easier to find faint objects compared to borte 8-9 where i live

[Jim in PA]

Since it's been either smoky or cloudy for awhile in my neck o' the woods (I feel for those at Cherry Springs, which is not too far down the road ), I tasked the Harvard Mini Observatory to take a shot of M13.  I got "Ben", a remote scope in my native state of Arizona, by luck of the draw.

 

It was taken on the night of the 14th of June, and they sent me one each of RGB frames and a dark.  It's not the best I've ever seen of M13, and I processed it, however ineptly.  But beggars must be glad for what they can get   

 

 

I found this pic online of the scopes "Ben" and "Cecilia", bent to their lonely tasks in the outback of AZ, their only company a few snakes and scorpions, I'm sure.  I'd like to thank the little fellers for the pic of M13 above:

 

Edited by Jim in PA, 17 June 2023 - 02:55 AM.