Showed someone M31 the other night

[starman1969]

I met someone who took quite a lot of images of the night sky, but didn't know too much about what things were, and where. I asked if he'd seen the Andromeda galaxy and he said he'd heard of it, but never seen it. I thought I'd try pointing it out to him to see if he could find it in my 15x70's. It took a bit of searching, but after a few minutes BANG!

He was surprised how obvious it was, seeing as the disc filled the fov of the bins. I mentioned the best way to find it by using Cassiopeia as a pointer. I also mentioned that seeing as he took so many images of the sky he was bound to have M31 in many of those.

Always a good feeling to show someone something they have never seen.

[Astro Imp]

Nice one, it seems strange that someone who takes many night sky images doesn't have the curiosity to find out more.

[FenlandPaul]

Good job! Showing people stuff is exhilarating .

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[starman1969]

It was a little weird that he took a lot of images of the night sky, aurora time lapses etc, yet didn't really know about what was up there.

Come to think of it, I can remember being a bit like that myself. Being very interested in taking pics of the stars/moon etc, but not really knowing much about it all.

[luna]

I can never locate the Andromeda galaxy. I use Cassiopeia. I live in sw London, so I can only assume that there is sufficient light pollution not to be able to see it.

Will my pentax 8x40 bins help?

[jonathan]

I use the Great Square of Pegasus, the top left corner and then up and left diagonally half way to the next brightest star, then up a bit.  I'd be surprised if you can see much more than a very faint hint of a smudge from inside London though.  Binoculars may help slightly, but you'll still only see a faint smudge in light polluted areas.

I managed to locate and see it during the summer, which I was quite proud of as it doesn't get dark until about 1am (I was out about 9pm, barely past twilight).

[starman1969]

Would be tough to spot in London, unless you know what it looks like. Even in a darkish sky it's a faint smudge.

[luna]

I think I did see it then. I was in Peterborough last month and there was no lighting and the sky was clear with no Moon. I do recall seeing a 'smudge' in the region that I thought Andromeda was likely to be. This smudge wad larger than the size of the full Moon.