Suggestions for a Rewarding Next Target?

I'd recommend M101 when you're in central Europe or in the US - available right now, should work well with the focal length of your scope and you can spend several nights on it if you like (galaxies and lots of integration time fit well together).

hi,

Yes, spring does not offer as many ideal targets for those of use that have shorter focal length telescopes. M101 is probably the largest individual galaxy that would be available right now to try. Coming up soon, though, is a lot of exciting stuff for wide FOV set ups (I have an 81mm WO). My current list is:

In the south is the Rho Ophiuchi region around the star Antares. It's borderline low in the horizon for those of us in the Northeast, but I think in your comments you said you are shooting in Texas, so it could be good.  It has a lot of color and action over a very wide FOV (try giving it a search here on Astrobin).

In the north/east sky is the Cygnus constellation. Around it are several excellent nebulae for small telescopes:
- Elephant trunk nebula & garnet star
- North American & Pelican nebulae
- Gamma Cygni & Crescent nebulae
- Veil nebula

All these are large in size and good options to explore. Some people are already starting to post images of these targets as they are available starting around 2-3 am right now if you want to get up early, but in the coming weeks they will be excellent options all night long. If your DSLR is not Astro-modified, it might be tough to expose a lot of the nebula detail, but I have seen people take pretty remarkable images with un-modified cameras, so it's not totally impossible (just more difficult).

Good luck on the next image!

You might want to look at this book. It is organized by month telling you what to shoot and giving suggestions on how it should be shot. We'll worth the price.

Edit…see my next post for the link.  Sorry.

I started with M16 and M17. Both will work well I believe with your setup. Should be visible now if you are in the US

Trifid Nebula, Lagoon Nebula, Lobster Nebula, Cat's Paw Nebula. In addition to the ones mentioned above, these are the Sagitarius targets. They come up around 0200L East Coast time. So you can get a couple or 3 hours on these targets each night. These are perfect targets for the 73mm. If you use the 73mm scope later in the summer and fall these targets will be available for most of the night.