Altair, Deneb and Vega

Deneb fascinates At an estimated distance of 800parsecs or about 2600ly (wikipedia), it competes in luminence (magnitude 1.25) with the other 2 stars that make the Summer Triangle - Vega and Altair. Vega is 25 ly and Altair 6 ly.

Altair in the constellation of Aquila is about 8deg above the celestial equator. It is about the highest point in the night sky for the celestial equator. (Theta Aquila is almost on the equator)

If one draws a line from Aquila (Theta) through  Zeta and Sadachbia in Aquarius to its South and further South-east  below Circlet of Pisces and Alresha and finally through to Mintaka in Orion in Eastern skies, you can see how the Celestial Equator runs across in the Fall skies.
To the South-west are the faint star of Ophiucus through which the equator also runs.

Finding Uranus in Oct 2013

Oct 11th 2013 with a half full moon in Sagittarius/Capricon, magnitude 6 stars are still visible to the naked eye under dark skies. Outside city lights with a half full moon, without any binoculars or scope, I can make out the circlet of Pisces and see delta Pisces and see the planet Uranus (magnitude 5.7) and the star HIP2954 (Magnitude 6.5) next to it. Also with the half full moon near Sagittarius, M7 was visible in binoculars.

There is an easy way to find Uranus:
Locate Algenib in the square of Pegasus.
To it's immediate lower right is 38 Pisces. Follow down lower left 2 more stars and you find 35 Pisces.
35 Pisces is in a diamond structure with 3 other like-magnitude stars.
At the extreme left of this diamond structure is 41 Pisces.
Rotate your finderscope a little down and left and you will find 51 Pisces.
Uranus and 51Pisces are almost at the same R.A 0h 34m.. so turn your declination down about 4 deg (Pisces 51 is at DEC 7deg RA 0h 32m and Uranus currently at 3deg RA 0h 35m)

Another way:  rotate your finderscope a tad left you will see Delta Pisces with 2 stars (Pisces 62, Pisces 60) in a straight line pointing to Uranus. On the way down to the left is 96 Pisces. Uranus is 4 degrees to the lower right of 96 Pisceum.
I found that in light polluted skies, the blue is washed out.

The wrath of Poseidon: Star hopping to find Neptune in Oct 2013

Neptune is 7.8 magnitude and probably better to look for it under dark skies.

These days (Oct 2013) Neptune is in Aquarius and the planet is not far from a whole story (classical mythology)  forever written into the skies around his (assuming Poseidon and Neptune are the same God) wrath with the Queen Cassiopeia. Just above and to the left the constellation of Aquarius one can find the asterism - the big square of Pegasus. Connected to this asterism at Alpheratz is the chained princess Andromeda. Above her towards Polaris, is her mother Queen Cassiopeia and next to Cassiopeia is the King-Cepheus. Rising in the eastern horizon is the hero Perseus, future husband of Andromeda. Story goes Cassiopeia angered Poseidon  by praising and comparing her daughter to the Nereids . Anyhow the story also has a happy ending when Perseus marries Andromeda.

Actually  the big 'W' traditionally associated with Cassiopeia reminds me more of the Golden State Warriors than anything else.

To find Neptune, start from Sadachbia in  the Aquarius Waterjug down thru 51 Aquarius and 44 Aquarius. 51 Aquarius is about 3.5 deg below from Sadachbia. If you have an equatorial, just slowly turn on the declination slow-motion handle.  44 Aquarius is to the lower right of 51 Aquarius. Hardly within 2.5 degrees below 44 Aquarius is Aancha (mag 4.3). From Aancha then hop down a little over a degree to HIP110009 (magnitude 5.4),
HIP110009 forms a triangle with Sigma Aquarius (lower left of HIP110009) and 38 Aquarius (lower right of HIP110009). All 3 stars are within 6 degrees and should be viewable together in a 6x30 finder-scope. If you a draw line from sigma Aquarius to 38 Aquarius, Neptune is in the center. Below Neptune are 3 dim stars towards 38 Aquarius.

Another option is from Deneb Algiedi in Capricon. To the left is  the magnitude  4.2 star  Iota Aquarii. Further to the left of Iota Aquarii are two magnitude 4 stars: 42 Aquarii (magnitude 5.4) and 38  Aquarii (magnitude 5.3). Between 42 and 38 Aquarii are 3 dim stars. The fist is magnitude 6.9, then 7.2 and finally 7.9 (HIP110169 about 670 ly away) . Neptune is the 3rd star to the right above HIP110169. Hop down these 3 stars and to the upper left you should find Neptune.

Stars near Celestial Equator

Stars near Celestial Equator:
Altair, Heze and Porrima (Virgo), Regulus (Leo), Mintaka (Orion), Alrescha and Pisces circlet (Pisces),
Eta and Zeta Aquarius (Aquarian waterjug), Sadal Melik (Aquarius)

Constellations along Celestial Equator
Virgo, Serpens, Caput, Ophiucus, Aquila, Aquarius, Pisces, Leo, Hydra, Canis Minor, Monoceros

HOUR	RA	DEC	STARS	CONSTELLATIONS
Delta Pisces is very close to Vernal Equinox (0h and 0deg)
0h			Caph, Schedar, Alpheratz	Cassiopeia, Pegasus
0h	0h 9m	69º	Caph	Cassiopeia
0h	0h 40m	56º	Schedar	Cassiopeia
0h	0h 8m	29º	Alpheratz	Pegasus
1h			Mirach, Tau Pisceum	Andromeda, Pisces
1h	1h 9m	35º	Mirach	Andromeda
1h	1h 12m	36º	Tau Pisceum	Pisces
2h			Hamal, Alrescha	Aries, Pisces
2h	2h 7m	23º	Hamal	Aries
2h	2h 2m	2.5º	Alrescha	Pisces
3h			Pleiades, Mirfak, Lambda Tauri, Atik	Taurus, Perseus, Taurus, Perseus
3h	3h 47m	24º	Pleiades	Star Cluster
3h 3h	3h 24m 3h 54m	50º 32	Mirfak Atik	Perseus Perseus
4h	4h		Lambda Tauri, Aldeberan	Taurus
4h	4h 1m	12º	Lambda Tauri	Taurus
4h	4h 36m	16º	Aldeberan	Taurus
5h			Capella, Menkalinan, Elnath	Auriga, Taurus
5h	5h 17m	46º	Capella	Auriga
5h	5h 26m	28	Elnath	Taurus
5h	5h 60m	45º	Menkalinan	Auriga
7h	7h 35m	32º	Castor	Gemini
7h	7h 45m	28º	Pollux	Gemini
8h			Altarf	Cancer
8h	8h 16m	9º	Altarf	Cancer
9h			M81, M82	UMa
9h	9h 56m	69º 4.1	M82 (Cigar galaxy)	UMa
9h	9h 55.6m	69º 4.5	M81 (Bode's galaxy)	UMa
10h	10h 8m	12º	Regulus	Leo
11h			Dubhe, Phecda	UMa
11h	11h	62º	Dubhe	UMa
11h	11h 53m	53º	Phecda	UMa
12h			Megrez	UMa
12h	12h 15m	57º	Megrez	UMa
13h			Alioth	UMa
13h	12h53m	DEC	Alioth	UMa
14h			M101	UMa
14h	14h	º	M101	UMa
15h			Pherkad	UMi
15h	15h	º	Pherkad	UMi
18h			Vega	Lyra
18h	18h36m	39º	Vega	Lyra
19h			Altair	Aquila
19h	19h 51m	8º 52	Altair	Aquila
20h			Deneb (20h41') , Sadr	Cygnus
20h	20h	º	Deneb (20h41') , Sadr	Cygnus
21h			Alderamin, Deneb	Cepheus, Cygnus
21h	21h	º	Alderamin, Deneb	Cepheus, Cygnus
22h			Sadal Melik	Cepheus
22h	22h	º	Sadal Melik	Cepheus
23h			Markab,Scheat, Gamma Pisceum	Pegasus,Pisces
23h	23h	º	Markab	Pegasus,Pisces
23h	23h	º	Scheat	Pegasus,Pisces
23h	23h	º	Gamma Pisceum	Pegasus,Pisces

10x50 binocs and magnitude 5 stars in light polluted skies.

My 10x50 Nikon binoculars (variable) gives about 4 degrees FOV. The finderscope gives about 6degs. But seeing stars/DSO with greater than magnitude 8 with binoculars in  these light-polluted skies (hardly any moonlight) was near impossible. My binoculars had no problem with stars around magnitude 5 (UMa 38) in city lights.

With the naked eye, stars with magnitude 3 are barely visible with the naked eye - I had a difficult time seeing the Aquarian waterjug or Piscean circlet without binoculars

Venus Clouds

Vernal Equinox in Pisces

Pisces is a great constellation for anyone wishing to see 0h RA line and the 0deg celestial equator.
The Pisces circlet is just  barely over 6.5deg across so you may not be able to get the whole circlet in your finderscope.
Kappa pisceum in the circlet is barely a degree above the equator and if you can find Omega pisceum (a 2deg hop from iota Pisceum) then you are extremely close to 0h

Anyone wishing to see the Celestial Equator (0degrees) and RA (0h) intersection can clearly see it in the skies these nights (October)
 Locate the waterjug of Aquarius. The Celestial Equator goes right through Eta Aquarii and Zeta1 Aquarii. Follow the line down below the circlet of Pisces and just between Omega Pisces and Delta2 Pisces, is the 0th hour (RA=0).
Also this a great way to locate the Planet Uranus which is in Pisces these days (Oct 2013).

Jan 2014 Eastern Skies over Delhi

Finderscope magnitude

Without use of any lens, Uranus at 5.7 and its current companion at magnitude 6.7 are easily visible in dark skies (Milky Way skies).

The  6x30 right finder cannot see the Ring Nebula at magnitude 9.5. I found the 6x30 can just see HIP110169 a small magnitude 7.9 star directly below Neptune in Aquarius. The star itself is 607 ly away. So I put the upper limit of the finder at 8. But (happiness expressed here) the 127mm Mak-Cassegrain can see up to 10.5 (my last test with the Mak was with M57 at magnitude 9.5) since it easily resolved TYC5810-701-1 at magnitude 10.56 -- one of 2 tiny stars to the left of Neptune and above HIP110169.

I'm going to see if I can see the 3 very faint magnitude 10 stars TYC6861-1787-1, TYC6861-2115-1 and TYC6848-2970-1 from Kaus Borealis to M28 (magnitude 10.5) with either my finder scope and the Mak Cassegrain.
TYC6861-2412-1 is exactly 10.0 and directly above Kaus Borealis and should be a good test for testing magnitude capability of both finder scope and Mak.