Why didnt i see orion's nebula tonight?

C

Candymancan21

New member
I tried that i still didnt see anything. I tried moving the telescope a little to the left and right like i do on some hard to see galaxies to help me see there core's and i saw nothing
Ok So i have had my Z10 10" Zhumell for like 2ish months now. I have seen with it and my new 10x50 Nikon Binoculars, The Ring nebula, Andromeda, The double cluster, The whirlpool galaxy. Jupiter with 5 bands and the red center, mars, Venus and countless other Clusters i don't care to name. Basically everything cluster in the milky way "thats out" i have seen pretty much in the last 2 months. All except some nebula i haven't been able to find. I cant find the dumbell nebula i have givin up on that.

Orion is getting higher up in the sky now and i decited to pull my telescope out after observing it with my binoculars for the last 2 days. I went outside like 1 Hour before the sun starts to turn the sky blue so it was still pitch black out.

I found a Nebula under orion's belt but it wasnt orion. It was NGC 1977 i could easily see the color green on this nebula and the entire shape i could draw you a picture and it would look just like in the Hubble pictures as far as shape goes...

However when i moved to the right i couldnt see Orion at all. I mean nothing. I could see the stars where it was suppose to be but i couldnt see even a fuzzy patch of it... Why is that ? Im very VERY disapointed. I couldnt see it with binoculars either. What I was looking at for 2 days was NGC 1977...

I live in a Orange/Red light polluted zone but if i could see NGC1977 wouldnt i be able to see orion ?
Listen i am not see'ing M42. I was see'ing NGC1977 the shape is identicle to that in pictures and so were the 5 stars in the nebula.
 
I think you must have a case of mistaken identity. NGC 1977 is a far more difficult object that M42. I've seen it only one or twice in my life under extreme dark sky conditions, whereas M42 is readily visible with the naked eye (and any sort of optical aid) in downtown Toronto (white on the light pollution map). What you're seeing is definitely M42; you're just looking in the wrong place.
 
I think you must have a case of mistaken identity. NGC 1977 is a far more difficult object that M42. I've seen it only one or twice in my life under extreme dark sky conditions, whereas M42 is readily visible with the naked eye (and any sort of optical aid) in downtown Toronto (white on the light pollution map). What you're seeing is definitely M42; you're just looking in the wrong place.
 
Since M42 can easily be seen with the naked eye, it makes no sense to me that you cannot see it with a 10 inch telescope. You are seeing the Trapezium? But no nebulosity? Your view of NGC 1977 should look nothing like the Hubble photos. Views in amateur scopes never look like Hubble views. I suspect you are seeing M42 and not NGC1977. Remember that the image may be inverted.

ADDED: You may be thinking that M42 will appear red in the eyepiece because of the color in the Hubble photos. It does not. In my C11, it appears sort of greenish gray. You cannot see those colors in an amateur scope with a relatively small aperture and instantaneous exposure time.
 
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