Worth taking the 8SE out tonight?
Now
Gregetarium
Reading the sky…
Sky map
North at the top · tap a dot
Solar system
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Dark window
Conditions
Forecast cloud cover for tonight's darkest hours, from Open-Meteo.
Tonight
Worth taking the 8SE out tonight?
Tonight's arc
Sunset through sunrise
Moon
Altitude tonight
Session
Best stretch tonight
Planet assistant
Tips for a close-up look at whatever is up
Best bets
Well above the horizon and bright enough to show from here
Sky conditions
Forecast cloud cover for tonight's darkest hours, from Open-Meteo.
Visitors
Comets and active showers
Moon phases
Next 60 days
Best dark-sky weekends
Meteor showers
Best night, and how much the Moon gets in the way
Eclipses
Visible from the Pacific Northwest
Targets
Deep-sky targets
Galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, and double stars from the Messier, NGC, and Caldwell lists · at least 15° above the horizon
| Object | Height | Direction | Brightness | Size | Eyepiece |
|---|
Gear
NexStar 8SE
Celestron 5-piece kit · 2× Barlow
How eyepieces get picked: the number on an eyepiece is its focal length, and a smaller number means more magnification. Planets and the Moon get the most magnification the air can handle at their height — objects low in the sky shimmer through more air, so they get less. Galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters get the widest view that still fits the whole object. Double stars get enough magnification to see the two stars apart. This is a suburban yard with a fairly bright sky (Bortle 6–7 on the 1–9 light-pollution scale), so glowing gas clouds look better through an O-III or UHC nebula filter. Galaxies look best in the 32mm with no filter, using averted vision: look slightly to one side of the object, since the edge of your eye is more sensitive to faint light.
Magnification limits for planets and the Moon, set by how much air you look through: 80× when the object is under 10° high, 150× under 20°, 220× under 40°, and 300× above that. For galaxies, nebulae, and clusters the goal is a view (the "true field") about 2.4 times wider than the object. With these five Plössl eyepieces that is usually the 32mm, and an object is flagged when it is too big to fit in the view. The tick on each bar marks ~250×, about the most this telescope can usefully show on a typical night.