The scale of M31

There have been a number of discussions about M31 and how poor it
looks in amateur equipment. It's quite easy to image it poorly too
g.

Looking for a reasonably poor image (I've lots of those) to give a
very approximate visual view of the object, I thought it might be
useful to put some scale on things.

Here's an indication of how big this object actually is...

http://www.digital-astronomy.co.uk/temp/scale_of_m31.jpg

The big blue ellipse represents more or less the outer extremities of
M31 as seen, for example, in Rob Gendler's fantastic image...

http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31BiggreyLRGBSsmall.html

So looking at M31 through a small scope reveals just the inner core of
this beauty. Sky conditions, darkness and dark adaption mustl be
optimised to see it at it's best. Poor skies will filter out any
detail.

Give M31 a break!

--
Pete Lawrence
http://www.pbl33.co.uk
Most recent images http://www.pbl33.fast24.co.uk/recent_images.html