Astro viewing difficulty

So I’m having difficulty with some Messier objects that are apparent magnitude 6 or greater; example is M33 or IC 1805. After alignment I use go to mode to the object and even if my magnitude is in the range of 80x-125x I don’t see the object at all: from what I read in my Astronomy guidebook, my scope and mag should be sufficient ( Celestron C8, NexStar 8SE mount, 25-16mm eyepiece). Not sure why I’m striking out even with good seeing conditions. My home is around bortle 6-7 range.

M33 is going to just fit into that field of view on your telescope. So magnitude 6 is very spread out. You will need to be in a darker sky to be able to see that one visually. You would need to take a picture to be able to see it. With that telescope being F10 even that would not show up all that well.

I was at CRO this weekend and looked through an ~F/7 6" refractor scope, and M33 was extremely faint even out there. I COULD see it, but it was with averted vision.

Thanks for this. I thought I was missing something.

Thank you for that. Guess I’ll need to visit CRO more often :slight_smile: