M1

Is M1 a difficult object from light polluted skies?

I live in a city, in an apartment complex with the usual "security"
lighting. I see only the brightest stars with my naked eye. For example,
in Orion, I see only Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, Saiph, three stars in the
belt, and 2-3 stars in the sword.

I have tried for the last three nights to find M1 with no luck -- not even
the faintest fuzzy appears. I'm using an XT-12, 12-inch dob; collimation is
dead on. I've tried different eyepieces -- 35mm PanOptic (43X), 18mm Radian
(83X), 10mm Radian (150X) -- no luck.

I am starhopping using a Telrad and the instructions in "Turn Left at
Orion" -- find Zeta Tauri -- very faint naked eye from my location -- then
slightly NW of Zeta Tauri, toward El Nath.

Have tried with OII and Orion UltraBlock filters -- not a wisp.

For comparison
-- M31 is not naked eye but is readily visible with 8X42 and 10X50 binos.
With my scope, I see the glowing center surrounded by a fuzzy cloud but I
can't see the long, elliptical extensions of M31 -- too much light pollution
I assume.
-- I can find M57, Ring Nebula, with no problem (takes a little searching).
At 83X and 150X the ring structure is clear though I cannot see the star in
the center.

My scope has the Orion Intelliscope feature but I'm trying to find objects
by starhopping. I guess my next step is to use the Intelliscope to find
M1 -- if it's visible at all.

Thanks.

Joe S. wrote:
Is M1 a difficult object from light polluted skies?

I live in a city, in an apartment complex with the usual "security"
lighting. I see only the brightest stars with my naked eye. For example,
in Orion, I see only Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, Saiph, three stars in the
belt, and 2-3 stars in the sword.

I have tried for the last three nights to find M1 with no luck -- not even
the faintest fuzzy appears. I'm using an XT-12, 12-inch dob; collimation is
dead on. I've tried different eyepieces -- 35mm PanOptic (43X), 18mm Radian
(83X), 10mm Radian (150X) -- no luck.

I am starhopping using a Telrad and the instructions in "Turn Left at
Orion" -- find Zeta Tauri -- very faint naked eye from my location -- then
slightly NW of Zeta Tauri, toward El Nath.

Have tried with OII and Orion UltraBlock filters -- not a wisp.

For comparison
-- M31 is not naked eye but is readily visible with 8X42 and 10X50 binos.
With my scope, I see the glowing center surrounded by a fuzzy cloud but I
can't see the long, elliptical extensions of M31 -- too much light pollution
I assume.
-- I can find M57, Ring Nebula, with no problem (takes a little searching).
At 83X and 150X the ring structure is clear though I cannot see the star in
the center.

My scope has the Orion Intelliscope feature but I'm trying to find objects
by starhopping. I guess my next step is to use the Intelliscope to find
M1 -- if it's visible at all.

Thanks.

It's listed in my star chart as 1 degree 7 minutes 56 seconds away from
zeta Tauri. Zeta Tauri is a mag 3, and the crab nebula is an 8.3, so
it's going to be much much fainter. There's a 4.9 mag star listed as
114 Taurii which is 1 degree 36 minutes away from M1, and 2 degrees 27
minutes away from zeta Taurii in the direction of tau Taurii. If you
imagine a line between zeta Taurii and 114 Taurii, M1 will be just
North of that line in the early evening.

In comparison, M57 is a mag 9.6, and M31 is listed as 4.3

On 19 Dec 2006 08:02:11 -0800, "Bill Hudson"
wrote:


Joe S. wrote:
Is M1 a difficult object from light polluted skies?

I live in a city, in an apartment complex with the usual "security"
lighting. I see only the brightest stars with my naked eye. For example,
in Orion, I see only Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, Saiph, three stars in the
belt, and 2-3 stars in the sword.

I have tried for the last three nights to find M1 with no luck -- not even
the faintest fuzzy appears. I'm using an XT-12, 12-inch dob; collimation is
dead on. I've tried different eyepieces -- 35mm PanOptic (43X), 18mm Radian
(83X), 10mm Radian (150X) -- no luck.

...Have tried with OII and Orion UltraBlock filters -- not a wisp.

For comparison
-- M31 is not naked eye but is readily visible with 8X42 and 10X50 binos.
With my scope, I see the glowing center surrounded by a fuzzy cloud but I
can't see the long, elliptical extensions of M31 -- too much light pollution
I assume.
-- I can find M57, Ring Nebula, with no problem (takes a little searching).

My scope has the Orion Intelliscope feature but I'm trying to find objects
by starhopping. I guess my next step is to use the Intelliscope to find
M1 -- if it's visible at all.

Thanks.

In comparison, M57 is a mag 9.6, and M31 is listed as 4.3

I can't seem to pull up Joe's original post so I'm replying to Bill's
quote and comment.

I tend to suspect that, assuming the scope IS being pointed right at
the spot for M1, the problem is two-fold: first, it's caused by the
light from all the security fixtures around the apartment complex; and
second: Joe's expectations, which might make him overlook something
that is just barely visible.

Where we live, in San Jose, CA., the light pollution is about as bad
as you can get; it discourages all but planetary observation and the
odd test of something once in a while. But, M1 is visible here in my
husband's 80 mm refractor though it's almost completely unsatisfactory
to me (unlike the way it used to look in his 17 inch Dob!) and I'm too
impatient to want to struggle with things like that. He, on the other
hand, likes a "challenge" so will put up with stuff that isn't
satisfactory just to be able to say that he could see it.

Twenty years ago, Stephen was working for Orion as their product
developer and had to field test the newly introduced filters such as
their Ultra Block in order to write the catalogue article; and he used
my Astroscan right outside of my apartment in the middle of San Jose
near all kinds of businesses, to see if it helped find the Crab nebula
and the Owl nebula. The filter helped us find them. But, I had
pretty much the same reaction, then: yeah, OK, but so what? They're
pretty faint! But I was spoiled by all the views that we used to get
up at Lick Observatory using the 22 inch Tauchmann telescope after my
concerts! At any rate, over the years the Crab still can be seen
here, with a filter and even in a small telescope.

So there is no reason to think that a 12 inch Dob can't do it. Maybe
Joe needs to take the scope to a much darker place and find and
observe the Crab, so that he can "downsize" his expectations. And one
problem I always have, when Stephen comes running inside shouting,
"Regina: you've GOT to see this!" is that he has been outside away
from house lighting for a while, and I haven't been. So you might
want to try making sure your eyes are adjusted to the dark, and not
even getting the slightest PEEP at the security lights around your
building for at least 20 to 30 minutes. Here's me in the red goggles
that somebody mentioned; I'm also wearing a black goggle that we made
from a welding mask, with just a single hole for sticking the eyepiece
thru, to cut off all stray light:
http://home.earthlink.net/~astro-app...oggles-red.jpg
Unfortunately the original color picture was sent to a magazine so all
we had to work with was a b&w photocopy which my husband 'colorized'
to show the red goggles. They cost about $20 and are called
"Astro-Goggles" but you can accomplish the same thing for less by
wearing an eyepatch or even a black cloth over your "observing" eye,
leaving your other eye clear so that you can see around you. Then,
take off the patch ONLY when looking thru the eyepiece. Throw a dark
cloth all over your head, too, if you don't want to bother making up a
contraption like that black goggle-thingy I'm wearing.

I think we've seen the Crab in my husband's C-11 in our driveway, in
the year and a half since we bought the scope. He used it as a test
object for difficult conditions. But, it's very vague and not nearly
as evident as the Ring nebula, which is really quite nice to see here,
even in all the lights, with the C-11. I'd guess that the Crab is
just a fraction of the brightness, barely above the glow you get from
the reflected city lights. When we've looked at it in the mountains
where my husband observes most of the time, south of San Jose, it
still isn't even what I'd call "bright" and distinct in the C-11. The
only time I think I've seen it like that is in Stephen's horrible old
17 inch Dob, which used to require a cargo van and a ramp to get it in
and out: scarcely worth it for the fuzzy images. But, the Dob showed
very slight traces of the detail, which aren't at all visible in the
C-11. Yet, at the same site, my little Orion StarBlast (4") right
next to the C-11 shows a very nice, small, clear M1. Just ten miles
south of San Jose, at a high elevation.

Check out our old astronomy program, which I give away for nothing
since it's so obsolete (being a pre-Windows thing): it has some
pictures that Stephen made up to try to show the difference between
light polluted and dark sky views of some famous objects; M1 is one of
them. He used an 8 inch scope for this particular simulation, showing
it about the way it looked at the house we lived in, near hiways 85/87
right in the midst of the Almaden valley area of San Jose, back when
he wrote the program in the late 80s/early 90s. It isn't really much
worse now because our house was only a mile from "Auto Row" on
Hillsdale, with tons of lights from car dealerships. Yet we saw the
Crab in his 3", my 4", and our 8" scope there. I seem to remember
that Stephen was able to see it -- or CLAIMED he could! -- without the
filters, but I couldn't: I needed the filter.

Here's where you can download this old program, now freewa
http://home.earthlink.net/~steve_waldee/index.html

Though the software is now ancient and clunky looking, and the
pictures are crude (since they were made up to look OK on old 13 inch
VGA monitors, which was the best people had fifteen years ago) there
is an interesting function in it that we haven't found in any other
program of its type: it will calculate the visibility of objects in
varying sizes of telescopes, based on analysis of them that is done by
examining the size, the type of light they emit, their brightness, and
the telescope optics (Jack Marling assisted with some of the methods
for doing this.) If you select the Crab nebula from the database list
of objects you can then change the brightness of the sky background,
or the telescope or other parameters, and see how the visibility
prediction is altered. I just used it to type in a 12 inch scope with
the same values as the Orion model Joe has. Then I went into "Config"
and selected limiting magnitude and chose stars of 3.5, which is about
what we see here, outside our house. I selected the Messier objects,
and M1, and the program calculated that its visibility is "marginal"
(it also suggested about 100x with a nebular filter) ; I changed the
naked eye stars to 5 and the program predicted a visibility that is
"good" (and again suggested 100x with either a nebular filter or a
light pollution filter.)

The program does run in XP or earlier Windows versions (except
sometimes for the double star part which tends to balk; see our
webpage for some instructions about dealing with that.)

So, try to:

1. Guard your eyes from bright lights;
2. See the Crab in a darker sky so that you know what it will look
like under really superior conditions.
3. Try again in all the light pollution and make sure you are getting
the same region of the sky, and try the filters.

It would be nice if you could let us know what your results are.

Regina
former Lick Observatory "Music of the Spheres" music director:
http://home.earthlink.net/~regina-pi...ic/concert.htm

Regina Roper was saying
http://home.earthlink.net/~astro-app/hors
ehead/goggles-red.jpg Unfortunately the
original color picture was sent to a
magazine so all we had to work with
was a b&w photocopy which my
husband 'colorized' to show the red
goggles. They cost about $20 and are
called "Astro-Goggles"

Those things are wonderful, and I highly recommend them! After wearing
them for 20 minutes or a half an hour and stumbling out in the dark
with them, I can not only see both sides of the Veil Nebula from my yard
here in town through 11x80 binoculars, but also see that the inside of
the loop is brighter than the outside.
As a sort of compromise, so that I can find my way around outside,
I made a red "monogoggle" out of old flashlight parts to cover only my
telescope eye while I'm outside in moderately light polluted areas.
Both of these devices are also great for humiliating your children
by looking like a total idiot.
Marty

Regina
former Lick Observatory "Music of the Spheres" music director:
http://home.earthlink.net/~regina-pi...ic/concert.htm

It is great to find a Suzuki connection here, and I enjoyed following the
above link. My wife is a Suzuki piano teacher, and is the director of the
Green Mountain Suzuki Institute. My younger son Tim is an accomplished
Suzuki pianist, and was chosen for last year's master class at the Suzuki
Association of the America's annual meeting in Minneapolis (Schubert,
Impromptu #2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 90). He also studies harpsichord, flute,
bassoon, composition, conducting, and of course electric guitar/keyboards.
He is also our Lunar observing expert, and webcam guy. Music and cloudy
nights, and astronomy on clear ones!

Dennis

"Dennis Woos" wrote in message
...
[snip]

Music and cloudy
nights, and astronomy on clear ones!

Better yet, combine both music and astronomy.

My best observing sessions have three essential components:

1) observing table and chair,
2) laptop displaying the observed area with CDC and playing (mostly) Bach in
the background,
3) observing equipment nearby.

Dennis
--
I.N. Galidakis --- http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/

On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:46:29 +0200, "Ioannis"
wrote:

"Dennis Woos" wrote in message
...
[snip]

Music and cloudy
nights, and astronomy on clear ones!

Better yet, combine both music and astronomy.

My best observing sessions have three essential components:

1) observing table and chair,
2) laptop displaying the observed area with CDC and playing (mostly) Bach in
the background...

A fellow after my own heart. I like Bach lute and guitar music while
star-gazing; but my husband Stephen prefers -- ugh! -- Bruckner
symphonies. I make him hold them off until he's observing alone...

RR

On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 16:05:08 -0500, "Dennis Woos"
wrote:

Regina
former Lick Observatory "Music of the Spheres" music director:
http://home.earthlink.net/~regina-pi...ic/concert.htm

It is great to find a Suzuki connection here, and I enjoyed following the
above link. My wife is a Suzuki piano teacher, and is the director of the
Green Mountain Suzuki Institute. My younger son Tim is an accomplished
Suzuki pianist

Thank you Dennis for the interesting information. You have quite a
talented son! I actually met Dr. Suzuki in Chicago -- he was probably
in his late 80s -- but the thought of asking *him* if he was
interested in astronomy never occurred to me!

Regina

On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 09:25:24 -0500, "Joe S." wrote:

Is M1 a difficult object from light polluted skies?

I live in a city, in an apartment complex with the usual "security"
lighting. I see only the brightest stars with my naked eye. For example,
in Orion, I see only Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, Saiph, three stars in the
belt, and 2-3 stars in the sword.

I have tried for the last three nights to find M1 with no luck -- not even
the faintest fuzzy appears. I'm using an XT-12, 12-inch dob; collimation is
dead on. I've tried different eyepieces -- 35mm PanOptic (43X), 18mm Radian
(83X), 10mm Radian (150X) -- no luck.

I am starhopping using a Telrad and the instructions in "Turn Left at
Orion" -- find Zeta Tauri -- very faint naked eye from my location -- then
slightly NW of Zeta Tauri, toward El Nath.

Have tried with OII and Orion UltraBlock filters -- not a wisp.

I suspect you meant "OIII". I have both filters, but haven't tried
either on M1 -- not yet anyway. I tend to prefer observing and
depicting objects as they appear in a reasonably dark sky without the
use of filters. I 'suspect' (but don't know for certain) that M1
might be one of those objects that's more readily visible without
either filter.

IIRC, the XT-12 comes with a 9x50 finder. One of the first things I
do with any finder is to measure its true field of view (My homemade
9x50 has a FOV of 5.75 degrees). Using the finder, with its known
true FOV, along with a reasonable star chart and your Telrad ought to
allow you to point the scope "exactly" at M1's location. M1 should
then be visible in your 35mm Panoptic. You will probably need to use
averted vision to see it. Once you've found the Crab, you could
increase magnification as desired.

If you don't already do this, here's a suggestion: Considering your
light pollution and/or light trespass situation, try keeping your
eyepiece eye covered (to maximize dark adaptation in that eye) except
when actually looking through the eyepiece. Do all you can to
maximize that eye's light sensitivity! (I wore red goggles inside
prior to last night's observations;-)

For comparison
-- M31 is not naked eye but is readily visible with 8X42 and 10X50 binos.
With my scope, I see the glowing center surrounded by a fuzzy cloud but I
can't see the long, elliptical extensions of M31 -- too much light pollution
I assume.
-- I can find M57, Ring Nebula, with no problem (takes a little searching).
At 83X and 150X the ring structure is clear though I cannot see the star in
the center.

My scope has the Orion Intelliscope feature but I'm trying to find objects
by starhopping. I guess my next step is to use the Intelliscope to find
M1 -- if it's visible at all.

M1 should be visible! I've seen M1 (from a dark sky) with 8x42
binoculars. Even when within one degree (IIRC) of a bright, gibbous
moon I've been able to see M1 with 20x80 binoculars. Light pollution
will definitely have an impact, but M1 should certainly be visible
with a 12 inch scope, at low power, under your sky conditions.

You've tried for three nights on your own. It sounds like a good time
to set the scope up with the Intelliscope. You could try once more
without using it; but this time, if you don't succeed, you can flip
the switch and use it! Good Luck! M1 is still out there. I saw it
just a couple of nights ago. A sketch appears in my blog.
--
Bill
Celestial Journeys
http://cejour.blogspot.com

W. H. Greer wrote:

M1 should be visible! I've seen M1 (from a dark sky) with 8x42
binoculars.




No problem seeing it from 3.5 mag skies in a C 8

As an aside... Seeing DSO's from urban areas is a
whole lot easier if you can find a *dark* spot to
view from.

Also seeing mag 9 high surface brightness DSO's
should be no problem.


--

AM

http://sctuser.home.comcast.net