What can i expect to see of Barnards Star and the famous quasar 3C 273 with my dynamax 6 inch telescope? Or is Barnards Star just visible with the unaided eye? Big thanks for anyone who can help me with this.

Greetings from,

Denis12

At magnitude 9.55, Barnard's star is not visible to the naked eye. In fact, no red dwarf is visible to the naked eye. Through a 6" scope, it will look like a faint dot.

Speaking of faint, 3C 273 is magnitude 12.8, which is about a half a magnitude brighter than the limit for a 6" scope. If you can see it at all, it will be very, very faint!

FWIW, I did not know this information off the tot of my head, but found it very easily by Googling for "Barnard's star". "3C 273" and "limiting msgnitude".

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Observing Barnard's Star requires a good finder chart. I've been following its progress (it has the highest known proper motion of any star - it moves approximately one lunar diameter or about half a degree every 175 years) for well over a decade. Through larger instruments, Barnard's Star has a faint ruddy color. (Its spectral class is M4V.)

The quasar 3C 273 is not much to look at but it should be visible, with difficulty, through your telescope from a dark sky location. I've seen it with my 101mm (4") Tele Vue refractor but I was at one of the darkest sites east of the Mississippi (Cherry Springs State Park) at the time.

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.