Using SkyTools for Dark Nebulae – Any Tips?

[silverfish]

Hi everyone,
I’ve been exploring SkyTools lately and I’m particularly interested in planning observations of dark nebulae. While the software is excellent for emission and reflection nebulae, I find dark nebulae a bit more challenging, especially in terms of visibility prediction and field placement.
For example, when I planned a session for Barnard objects last month, the suggested observing windows looked fine on paper, but at the eyepiece the contrast was lower than I expected. I suspect this may be more sensitive to sky brightness and transparency than other object types.
So I’m wondering:

• How do you use SkyTools to optimize observing dark nebulae?
  
• Do you tweak the software’s magnitude/surface brightness settings, or do you rely more on personal field notes and star charts?
  
• Any recommended catalogues that integrate well with SkyTools for this purpose?
  

I’d love to hear your strategies, especially from those who have experience combining SkyTools planning with actual field results.
Clear skies,
Silverfish

[theskyhound]

Hello,

Here is some information about how SkyTools calculates the visibility of dark nebulae, which may help. Surface brightness is not a consideration.

The detectability of a dark nebula is defined by how the dark area contrasts with the stars around it. If you see few stars, the nebula will be difficult to discern. As you increase the number of stars you can see, usually because you are seeing fainter stars, the nebula will be more easily visible. So if there is less light pollution or a larger aperture telescope, you will see fainter stars, and the dark nebula will be more easily detectable.

What I did was to view each dark nebula and then assign a star magnitude limit to each detectability range: obvious, easy, perceptible, difficult, challenging, very challenging. SkyTools calculates the faintest star you can see at a given moment in your telescope from your location and that is used to determine the detectability (easy, difficult, etc).

No outside catalogs or are required.