Another night of dyslexic orientation

[Marcelo F.]

I haven't used my telescope for more than 2 months (I've been a little lazy with the rainy weather). Last night the sky was clear and the moon had not yet risen on the horizon at 8pm. I took out my astronomy pocketbook, red light, telescope and went to see what could be observed. Orion was standing in front of me and the nebula area was easily identifiable with the naked eye. Since I live in a red zone my interest was not so much on the nebula itself, but trying to identify specific stars.
Let me see if I can see the 4 points of light, that compose the orion trapezium, with my maximum magnification available (75x).
I checked my pocketbook to see how I could identify which of the light points I was observing was the trapezium before I switched to the 4mm (75x) eyepiece.



Since I am in an observation position behind the tube, it is better to rotate the book 180 degrees to facilitate identification.





and it was like that
that I lost about 20min
to reach the conclusion
that the figure in the book was already in the correct orientation for those using a telescope.
And Yes, I was able to identify the trapezium and clearly see the 4 points of light.

[KingClinton]

Well done on nabbing the famous Theta-1 Orionis cluster!

With a clear dark sky and the cluster at it's highest possible elevation(to improve your odds) try catch the E and F stars also.
A bit tricky but with the right conditions it can be done. Use your maximum magnification for these two.

Below is a chart taken from Free star charts, a link to the original is posted below.

images.jpeg (6.95 KiB) Viewed 1273 times

https://freestarcharts.com/messier-42

[helicon]

Thanks for the report on the trapezium.

[Don Quixote]

"Oh, how sweet it is!"
Thank you, Marcelo for your fine report.
I relate completely with your orientation calculus.
Thank you for posting this illustrated recounting of your outing.
More clear skies to you, Sir!