Newb Q: M31 (Andromeda) In an 8'' Newt

I found M31 for the first time last night, I think. Using Starry Night, I'd
say my view looked more like M110, but I can't imagine that I could mistake
M31 for M110 or vice versa.

What can I expect to see in reasonable skies when looking at M31? I am
fairly sure it was M31, because I was even able to see it in my finder
scope. I can't imagine I'd see M110 and not M31, so it must have been M31.

BV.

"Benign Vanilla" wrote in
:

I found M31 for the first time last night, I think. Using Starry
Night, I'd say my view looked more like M110, but I can't imagine that
I could mistake M31 for M110 or vice versa.

What can I expect to see in reasonable skies when looking at M31? I am

A relatively dense and bright center surrounded by a large haze, so large
in fact that it probably extended well beyond your field of view.

M31, M32 and M110 (a bit less for the latter) almost appear to be a single
object in a small wide filed scope. In fact, M110 is close to 100 times
less bright than M31 confusion is not possible.

This being said, M31 is probably one of the less spectacular big messier
objetcs. It is large, yes, but that is about it.

fairly sure it was M31, because I was even able to see it in my finder
scope.

It should be fairly large, even in your finder scope, and visible to the
naked eye in any sky dark enough to show mag 4 stars


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Benign Vanilla wrote:

I found M31 for the first time last night, I think. Using Starry Night, I'd
say my view looked more like M110, but I can't imagine that I could mistake
M31 for M110 or vice versa.

What can I expect to see in reasonable skies when looking at M31? I am
fairly sure it was M31, because I was even able to see it in my finder
scope. I can't imagine I'd see M110 and not M31, so it must have been M31.

BV.

You should be able to see both in the same view (at low power).

Sam Wormley wrote:

Benign Vanilla wrote:

I found M31 for the first time last night, I think. Using Starry Night, I'd
say my view looked more like M110, but I can't imagine that I could mistake
M31 for M110 or vice versa.

What can I expect to see in reasonable skies when looking at M31? I am
fairly sure it was M31, because I was even able to see it in my finder
scope. I can't imagine I'd see M110 and not M31, so it must have been M31.

BV.

You should be able to see both in the same view (at low power).

What do you mean by "reasonable skies"? M-31 is HUGE, but quite faint
except for the central 'hub' area. DARK skies make ALL the difference in
observing the outer regions of it. It can be REALLY impressive with dark
skies in 5" binoculars (excellent for seeing the whole thing), or any
scope over 12 inches aperture, with the right eyepiece. Sure, you can
see it with most any scope, but larger is usually better (exceptions
being rich-field scopes and binoculars that still work well with lesser
apertures). Larger aperture allows more magnification to be used, with
correspondingly narrower fields of view, to examine individual parts of
the galaxy. The dust lanes are impressive in either range of instrument,
but remember that they're darker regions against the dim background
illumination of the 'disk'. If sky conditions won't let you make out the
disk illumination, you won't see the dust lanes either.

I've found both M-32 and M-100 to be easily visible when the main disk
of M-31 was only barely visible.

Dan Mitchell
==========

On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 10:09:39 -0400, "Benign Vanilla"
wrote:

I found M31 for the first time last night, I think. Using Starry Night, I'd
say my view looked more like M110, but I can't imagine that I could mistake
M31 for M110 or vice versa.

What can I expect to see in reasonable skies when looking at M31? I am
fairly sure it was M31, because I was even able to see it in my finder
scope. I can't imagine I'd see M110 and not M31, so it must have been M31.

BV.


Depends on what scope you use. A small scope will only show a
brightening nuclear condensation, and a dimmer outer part, spanning
about 3 degrees, if the sky is nice and dark. Large scopes will
show the dust lane, perhaps some detail.
M31 is big and bright, but there are better galaxies to look at
for detail, M81/M82 being two good examples.
-Rich

What can I expect to see in reasonable skies when looking at M31? I am
fairly sure it was M31, because I was even able to see it in my finder
scope. I can't imagine I'd see M110 and not M31, so it must have been M31.

BV.

It really depends on how much light pollution you have and right now, the moon.


When the skies are dark, M31 is quite impressive in an 8 inch Newt. But there
are a couple of things to realize.

1. Andromeda is larger than the FOV of your 8 inch scope even with a Widefield
2 inch eyepiece, so even if the skies are dark, you will not see much of it
because the gradient of surface brightness is low, ie its all pretty dim and it
fills the eyepiece.

2. If your skies Magnitude 4 or so, you will only see the bright core of
Andromeda, not very impressive.

jon

"Benign Vanilla" wrote in message
...
I found M31 for the first time last night, I think. Using Starry Night,
I'd
say my view looked more like M110, but I can't imagine that I could
mistake
M31 for M110 or vice versa.

What can I expect to see in reasonable skies when looking at M31? I am
fairly sure it was M31, because I was even able to see it in my finder
scope. I can't imagine I'd see M110 and not M31, so it must have been M31.

BV.

Last Week... Saturday evening was the best night all summer for me. Cool
night, clear conditions...

I had my ETX-60 out for it's first run. Aligning was easy and the first
item I tried was M31. Not in the center of the eyepiece but a quick hit of
the GoTo button and the ETX-60 started circling the area... found it pretty
quickly. I'm pretty sure it was M31 but for a while I thought I had M32
which is in the vicinity.

Using a 25mm scopetronix plossl all I could see was the fuzzy core.

I had a great time with the ETX-60, but I'm thinkinf of moving to an ETX-90
soon.

XxXxXxX wrote:
I had my ETX-60 out for it's first run. Aligning was easy and the first
item I tried was M31. Not in the center of the eyepiece but a quick hit of
the GoTo button and the ETX-60 started circling the area... found it pretty
quickly. I'm pretty sure it was M31 but for a while I thought I had M32
which is in the vicinity.

Using a 25mm scopetronix plossl all I could see was the fuzzy core.

I had a great time with the ETX-60, but I'm thinkinf of moving to an ETX-90
soon.

That's not a bad scope, but it will still show M31 as a fuzzy core. If
you're sufficiently sensitive, you *might* see an edge of a dust lane,
but it can be a tough feature even in somewhat larger scopes or under
indifferent skies.

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

I had a great time with the ETX-60, but I'm thinkinf of moving to an ETX-90
soon.

I hope you take sometime to investigate the capabilities of the ETX-90, it is a
quite different scope than the ETX-60. With its slow focal ratio and long
focal length, the ETX-90 is primarily good for planetary and double star stuff.

The maximum field of view is about 1.25 degrees, for example, you cannot fit
the Pleaides in the eyepiece with the ETX-90.

The Celestron 130GT seems like it might be a better all around choice, and less
expensive too. 130mm F5 Newt, it will provide widefield views and decent high
power stuff as well.

jon

(Jon Isaacs) wrote in
:


I had a great time with the ETX-60, but I'm thinkinf of moving to an
ETX-90 soon.

I hope you take sometime to investigate the capabilities of the
ETX-90, it is a quite different scope than the ETX-60. With its slow
focal ratio and long focal length, the ETX-90 is primarily good for
planetary and double star stuff.

The maximum field of view is about 1.25 degrees, for example, you
cannot fit the Pleaides in the eyepiece with the ETX-90.

The Celestron 130GT seems like it might be a better all around choice,
and less expensive too. 130mm F5 Newt, it will provide widefield
views and decent high power stuff as well.

Or you might consider a medium aperture (6-10 inches) Dobsonian mounted
reflector, which will give you greatly improved light gathering power for
deep sky objects.