M 104 appearing as a hazy patch of cloud

[makabayan]

Searched for M104 last Saturday and was very happy to see it. It appeared to me mostly as a hazy patch of cloud, very different from what was shown in Stellarium.

I was using an 70 mm f/10 refractor with a 20 mm eyepiece.  When I tried my 10 mm eyepiece, M104 seems to disappear.

I was wondering is there anything that I can do to improve my view or am I limited because of my telescope specs?    

[Qualia]

Firstly, congratulations on finding M 104. Great stuff 

In stargazing circles there's a euphemism called a faint fuzzy which refers to deep sky or deep space objects (DSO’s). They're called this because most of them appear as dim smudges in our telescopes. It's interesting to note that back in the late eighteenth century, Herschel with his 18" (470mm) scope started a systematic discovery of these faint fuzzies which he called nebulae, a generic term meaning cloud-like or cloud. And only in the last century have we been able to identify most of these 'nebulae' as galaxies.

Under such circumstance, that a tiny bit of glass no wider than 3" was able to peer some 30,000,000 light years away is itself mind blowing and as such, that you yourself observed such a 'hazy patch of cloud' with your 70mm is no mean feat .

With reasonably dark skies I feel your 70mm will be able to see all of Messier objects, for example, but due to limited aperture there will be relatively little detail resolved. As you step up aperture under the same dark sky conditions more internal structure can be tweaked but this will be nothing like the Hubble pictures.

I'm not too clear what you mean by 'improved', so for now, so as not to assume anything and just by way of a passing conversation, the beautiful colours and detail you see in nebulae or galaxies in most astrophotos are only visible in astrophotos. When observing galaxies or nebulae at the eyepiece, you will generallly see in differing shades of grey, black and white, hence the term 'faint fuzzies'. Your eye is simply incapable of detecting colour in very dim light.

At best, your eye can see green, so it is possible that some very bright nebulae, such as the Orion Nebula, show a greenish tint but other than that only very bright objects, like the stars, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, are bright enough to exhibit colour.

The skies I generally work under aren't very dark and with a 250mm scope, I was able to sketch M 104 just a while back. I'm not happy with the sketch, for there are a coulple of slight errors but at least you get some kind of idea:

Now, compare that sketch with a Hubble photo:

To get some idea of what to expect and hopefully to answer your second question, it might be worth your time to have a quick read of this post.

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Don't forget that Stellarium uses (probably) Hubble photos or very similar high quality shots, as far as we are concerned, there is no colour in space, not in terms of the DSOs, faint fuzzies is normally as good as it gets, apart from M42, which is a bright fuzzy, but still very grey

But great work in M104, I remember struggling with that one.

Matt.

[Chris]

Congrats on detecting M104 Aperture and dark skies are very important factors for deep sky observing, so the fact you managed to see M104 with a 70mm refractor suggests that you must have very good skies?  

[happy-kat]

Must feel great locating objects like that.

Are you only using the supplied eyepieces which came with your telescope?

[BeanerSA]

Congrats on detecting M104 Aperture and dark skies are very important factors for deep sky observing, so the fact you managed to see M104 with a 70mm refractor suggests that you must have very good skies?

Yeah! I was going to say detecting it with a 70mm is quite a feat!

[acey]

M104 is unusual in being very bright (by normal galaxy standards) with a gradual, fairly steady falling off of brightness from the centre. What this means is that small aperture can show a "sombrero" shape (the brightest innermost region) while larger aperture shows a bigger sombrero. I viewed it with 10x50 binoculars (at a dark site in Greece) and could see the shape.

Seeing DSOs with your own eyes is never like looking at a long-exposure image. It's better, cos you're really "there".

[makabayan]

I'm not too clear what you mean by 'improved', so for now, so as not to assume anything and just by way of a passing conversation, the beautiful colours and detail you see in nebulae or galaxies in most astrophotos are only visible in astrophotos. When observing galaxies or nebulae at the eyepiece, you will generallly see in differing shades of grey, black and white, hence the term 'faint fuzzies'. Your eye is simply incapable of detecting colour in very dim light.

I was wondering if i was not using the correct eyepiece - too much or too little magnification? Also would a UHC filter help?

[makabayan]

Must feel great locating objects like that.

Are you only using the supplied eyepieces which came with your telescope?

Yes I'm using the supplied eyepieces a  PL20mm and PL10mm.

[swamp thing]

Congrats on finding M104. No I'm afraid an UHC filter will make no difference with M104.

Funnily enough this galaxy seems to offer little extra to Imagers. All the detail is easily observed visually in medium to large apertures. The sombrero feature is very easy to distinguish. I don't see much in that Hubble image that can't be seen in a backyard scope TBH.

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