Why can't I find anything with my telescop?

Galaxies tend to be *particularly* difficult - for a number of reasons.

When you start out, just locating the proper 'area' is a challenge.

Then you run through the relatively 'easy' Messier Objects (roughly 2/3rds of the list) - and you find that some of the galaxies (in the Leo, Ursa Major and Virgo areas) are quite visible - at least compared to others - - particularly some of the smaller, more 'defined' galaxies.

But then ones like the Triangulum can make you gnash your teeth. Repeatedly, it can be overlooked because it is so @#$% big - and spread out - - and dim. Yes, it has a magnitude that indicates its quite bright - - but that's spread out over a fairly large area. And even a bit of high humidity in the air, or local air pollution, or light pollution - and it vanishes.

Keep trying - - a lot of it is just plugging away at it - keep trying - remember that sometimes that 'haze' you are cursing for blocking your view - - actually **is** the galaxy you are looking for.

And learning ''how to see'' takes time and experience. Use hints from the books - like averted vision. Or lightly tapping the side of the scope. Block as much extraneous light as you can - pull a shirt over your head - give yourself at *least* a half hour to adjust to the dark.

And just keep trying.

Welcome to the hobby!

Galaxies require dark sky sites. The Triangulum galaxy has low surface brightness. It's large in the sky, to the integrated brightness is high. This is, IMO, a confusing statistic.

An oxygen 3 filter will show you nebulea, even from city centers in an 8".

I much prefer the 9x50 finder scope over a telrad, especially in places with high light pollution. You get to use fainter stars in your star hopping.

I'm quite fond of the xt8. I've got an xt10. I can pick up an assembled xt8 and walk across a field with it in one hand. The xt10 requires two trips. And yet, in a side by side comparison, they give very similar views.

I used a planetarium that showed stars down to 6th magnitude. This isn't enough. Get a good star chart or planetarium software.

Finding objects with a telescope requires knowledge of the sky and skills as an observer. Beginners not only can't find things, they can't even _see_ things when their telescopes are pointing right at them. Deep sky objects are totally different from the things we are used to looking at. They are very faint, and very low in contrast. You need to learn your way around the constellations to locate objects, and then you need to train your eye to see faint, low contrast objects. You use tricks like averted vision (looking slightly off to one side to put the object on the most sensitive part of the eye) and jiggling the telescope slightly, since we can see moving objects more easily than stationary ones. Terry Dickinson's book NightWatch gives a lot of these "tricks of the trade."

Another problem with seeing DSOs is light pollution. Even natural light pollution from the Moon can prevent you from seeing things. The Triangulum Galaxy is in fact one of the most difficult objects to see because it is large in size, has low surface brightness, and has a feathered edge with no distinct boundary. You can be looking right at it and never see it. In fact it is _larger_ than the field of view of your 48x eyepiece, so you can be pointing right at its centre and not see it because it's larger than your field of view.

If it's any consolation, we've all gone through this as beginners. I can still remember the frustration of trying to find Triangulum myself!

M33, the Triangulum galaxy, is actually a tricky one. It's nominally bright, but it appears quite large and so the light is spread out, ie it's got low surface brightness. That means light pollution can make it invisible. I've not seen it in any instrument from my urban site, even though I've spotted the more distant M81 and M82.

The telrad is a glass plate angled at 45 degrees, with a bullseye projected on it. It mounts on your telescope with double sided tape. You look through the glass plate at the stars and you can see the bullseye. You aim the telescope at a bright object, then move the bullseye until it is aligned with the object.

Once this is done, you can easily find an area of sky through the small glass window, and, using the telescope controls, move the bullseye to the near your target. After that you have to move the telescope by the tiniest amounts to line up your object

At even one lightyear, you are looking at a sphere with a 59,443,331,235,633.9 km circumference.

At this distance, one degree is a distance of 165,120,364,543 km, one arc minute is 2,752,006,075 km and one arc second is 45,866,768 km

Say your telescope is 1,000 mm from the mount to the mirror. This gives a circumference of 6283 mm.

One degree is 17.454 mm, one arc minute is 0.291 mm, one arc second is 0.004848 mm or 6.848 thousandths of a mm. If you move your telescope even 1 thousandths of a mm, you change your view by 9,490,967 km. Moving it by 1 ten-thousandth of a mm (1/10,000) changes your view by 949,098 km or nearly a million km.

If your object of interest is 10 lightyears away, 1/10,000th of a mm changes your view by 10 million km

Your telescope is probably shorter than 1 meter from swivel to mirror, so you could double these figures.

This shows why it is so hard to locate a deep space object. You must move your telescope by the tiniest amount, and you have to move it up and down by the tiniest amount as well as side to side

Finding objects is frustrating when you are starting out, I have a couple of suggestions"

"Turn Left at Orion" is a great book for beginners on how to find objects. I actually have bought several copies and given them away to friends who were in your shoes.

http://www.amazon.com/Turn-Left-Orion-Hundreds-Tel...

Another suggestion is don't look for faint deep sky objects during this time when the moon is almost full. Wait several days until the moon rises later in the evening. Make sure that you are far away from city lights. M33 is pretty faint, actually I find it easier with binoculars.

It's brutally hard to find anything! That makes it all the more rewarding when you do though. I've heard finders can help but I don't own one myself. Best of luck!