not trying hard enough

I read today in The Backyard Astronomer's Guide (TBAG) that in telescopes with apertures around 8 inches, I could see over 100 globular star clusters, over 700 open star clusters, over 100 emission nebulas, more than 50 reflection nebulas, 100+ dark nebulas, over 500 planetary nebulas, 5 or 6 supernova remnants, and over 4000 galaxies!

Several thousand galaxies are brighter than 13th magnitude.

Obviously, I'm not trying hard enough...

I'm still feeling some frustration remnants from Mom's. I stayed up all night and all I recall is maybe seeing Neptune... Of course, I did more than that! Still, I am feeling frustrated that I cannot seem to find things in the Messier catalog. When I have superior equipment and reasonably dark skies.

Things to do then:

• keep trying, chin up
• reduce list of Messier objectives down to one per night, don't do another until you've found the one
• find more very dark sky sites
• practice star hopping and right-angle movements to bullseye targets

It is consoling to see others write on their web pages and blogs that they too are experiencing frustration looking for deep sky targets.

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I am about to finish reading TBAG. Funny, I received this book a long time ago but I only skimmed it then. It was good to read it thoroughly. It is unabashed in the hazards with visual and photographic astronomy.

It is encouraging to know that the authors Dickinson and Dyer have made mistakes. It makes me want to keep trying but at the same time be more patient.