Finding targets in light polluted skies - any tricks? - Forums

Topic starter

7 days ago

Hello everyone!

As you can guess from the title, I’m still fairly new to this hobby.

I have a tracker but not a go-to mount unfortunately, so all my targets so far have been the classic easy ones to find - the ones you can pretty much see with the naked eye with a bit of squinting on a clear night.

However, I’m having trouble finding fainter subjects, and I’m wondering if there are any tricks other than star hopping.

For the Rosette Nebula for example I’ve tried several times hopping from Betelgeuse and taking test shots, but I just can’t seem to succeed.

Is there anything else other than star hopping I can try without additional equipment?
Do I just need to bite the bullet and get a guiding system so I can plate solve to nudge me in the right direction?
Is there any purpose built device that’s something in between a red-dot finder and a full guiding setup (cost and capability-wise)?

Any help is welcome!

Thanks,

Gio

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Tony Gondola

Frequent contributor

Exemplary contributor

7 days ago

You could try learning to use setting circles if your mount has them. There are other tricks like finding a star at the same dec. as your target and moving the right amount in R.A. In heavy light pollution though, it’s going to be painful. I don’t know what you are using for a camera but if it’s compatible with NINA or SharpCap you could use plate solving to walk to the object without automated slewing. I think there’s also some systems that support a “push to” approach but no idea what software is involved. Ultimately though, as you seem to realize, a GoTo mount with plate solving is the way to go.

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Rick Veregin

7 days ago

Hi Gio

Assuming you don’t want at this time a dive into your pockets for a GoTo mount, then Sharpcap does have a plate solve that works very well and is very quick, generally only 5 seconds or so to solve. Then adjust the direction of your mount and plate solve again. As long as your star tracker is polar aligned, this works really well. Once you understand how much your need to move your mount for a particular offset it can be very quick to the target.

If your mount supports it, and your mount is connected, after the plate solve SharpCap has a one click button to auto align to the target. But the manual method works really well.

The basic free version has the plate solve, you will just need to setup the plate solve through AstoTortilla, or one of the other options. Go to the SharpCap settings and choose the plate solve you want.

And SharpCap is a wonderful capture software, so it can do everything you need in image capture. If you pay for the Pro version, it also has an awesome polar align using the plate solve, which works great too. Takes less than 5 minutes for a pretty much perfect polar align.

Rick

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Fco. Montero

7 days ago

Hi Gio,

I was in your shoes a while ago dealing with heavy light pollution, struggling to pick a target because there weren't enough reference stars, and using a non-GoTo mount. While searching online, I found these videos that I’m sharing with you. They really helped me locate almost any object. I hope you find them useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j70L3yEu_rw&list=PLoIF8ekYhjZVUl7xGsfAEuYox5-L24b-3&index=11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfTsTZkUOjo&list=PLoIF8ekYhjZVUl7xGsfAEuYox5-L24b-3&index=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNPIMKOB9k4&list=PLoIF8ekYhjZVUl7xGsfAEuYox5-L24b-3&index=4

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Jay Sanchez

6 days ago

Hi Gio - for a low tech way to help you find targets and your position you can upload a test shot to https://nova.astrometry.net/ to plate solve your image and then adjust your framing accordingly, via iterations. I've done this with my cellphone taking a pic of the back of an dSLR screen and uploaded that shot to be plate solved.

Good luck - CS, Jay

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giogargiulo

Topic starter

2 days ago

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!
What ended up working for me is a combination of Stellarium and Astrometry.
I bought a simple HDMI-to-USB converter to plug the feed from my camera into my phone, I then take a screenshot of the test picture in the gallery (much faster than transferring the actual picture), and upload that to Astrometry.
It usually solves it within 10 seconds and I can get a good sense of where I need to move next.
It’s still a bit tedious to repeat this process over and over again until I reach the target, but at least I’m sure I’m in the right place.

Fco. Montero · Mar 25, 2026, 07:49 AM
Hi Gio,
I was in your shoes a while ago dealing with heavy light pollution, struggling to pick a target because there weren't enough reference stars, and using a non-GoTo mount. While searching online, I found these videos that I’m sharing with you. They really helped me locate almost any object. I hope you find them useful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j70L3yEu_rw&list=PLoIF8ekYhjZVUl7xGsfAEuYox5-L24b-3&index=11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfTsTZkUOjo&list=PLoIF8ekYhjZVUl7xGsfAEuYox5-L24b-3&index=3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNPIMKOB9k4&list=PLoIF8ekYhjZVUl7xGsfAEuYox5-L24b-3&index=4

I’m gonna take a look at this suggestion next, which seems to be a better way to get a good approximate location faster

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