TheSkySearchers

I wondered where did you go. I am also waiting for the dry summer weather but it gonna be awhile. There are still May gray and June gloom ahead.

I had a clear night 2 nights ago (so I thought) but with accurate alignment and M81 and M82 fairly high in the north sky I could not find these galaxies or maybe the better word is could not SEE these galaxies. I'm afraid my sky above my house is too polluted with light and airplane exhaust to see objects of a surface brightness dimmer than 10 though I find this hard to believe with a 9.25 inch aperture telescope.

Tonight maybe be a clear night and my plans are to try to find the galaxies M65 and M66 below Leo when it gets high in my SE sky. Their surface brightness is around 12.36 so I'm guessing I won't be able to see them.

I have found some very pretty open Clusters in areas where I see no stars with my bare eyes so this telescope is doing something.

Galaxies, even brighter ones, could be tricky under light polluted skies. But as your signature says 'The only way to make it is to try!'

Large aperture scopes produce small field of views, so even slight inaccuracy in GoTo may place the target out of the EPs FOV. This is why it is critical to confirm that you are at the right location comparing the star pattern you see at the EP to the FOV generated by SkySafari.

Once you confirm the right location work slowly through your EPs starting from the lowest power (36mm). At each power sit on the view for a minute, employ averted vision tricks to see if you can spot some faint glow.

Your 36mm EP without reducer will produce about one degree TFV (as shown below). If your sky is bad only the galaxy cores will be visible in M81 and M82 and they could be pretty faint.

Well, as I expected I could not SEE any of the galaxies around LEO but I was able to SEE the Ghost of Jupiter proving my alignment was good. I'm afraid my sky has way too much light pollution. It doesn't get black. It's always grey and almost the same shade of grey as the background color in the area I am typing this reply. So it's a pretty bright sky. This telescope is can see faint objects in that anywhere I point this thing I can see stars of varying brightness which is why I just don't understand why when I'm pointed right at a galaxy I don't even see a smudge of nebulous haze. I just see my grey sky. I can move the scope slowly around the area without losing alignment and so I do this in case the alignment is off but averted seeing and regular seeing doesn't show anything in the area of these galaxies.

The Ghost of Jupiter, NGC 3242, was cool and the first planetary Nebula I have ever seen.

It has to be my sky that prevents me from seeing anything when pointed at a Galaxy. And that is taking my time trying all my EPs with the Baader Silver BBHS 2" Diagonal.

My alignments seem to be more accurate with the Celestron GPS and I'm guessing that is due to a more accurate time of day that it provides that has to be better than the clocks in my house.

I will add that when I saw Andromeda from my home in Florida in a 6 inch Reflector clear as day my sky there was black. Not grey like it is at my home in TX. Oh, and I couldn't even see Polaris tonight. I rarely see this star.

Any thoughts from you guys would be greatly appreciated.

I bought a Unidren Sky Quality Meter and after several reading in my yard I know for sure why I'm having a hard time seeing faint objects. I'm getting average readings of 17.3 Mag/acrsec(squared). They give you a chart that goes from 17 (bad light pollution) to 23 (very little light pollution) so I guess my sky is about as bad as it could be. Bummer!

That's strong LP, indeed. At least you got a good-sized scope and GoTo.

Maybe there are some darker areas within a short distance of you.
https://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/la ... n_map.html