Observing report

[Dave1]

Hi well tonight. I went out early. I downloaded Stellarium last night. How impressive is that programme!. Anyway. Tonight i found. Pegasus

Andromeda

Equleus

Delphinus

Ursa minor

Cassiopeia

Lacerta

Triangulum

Camelopardalis

Aries

First thing i had a look at was the moon. Then i hunted around for awhile looking for Uranus. I probably did get it in my Bino's but left it at that. As it isn't very bright. Had a quick look at Jupiter with my Bino's. Then i set about finding M31 Andromeda galaxy. Which if i find it would be my first galaxy. Low and behold using star hopping. I find M31 with my Bino's. So i just had to get it in my telescope. With a bit of effort. I finally get M31 in my sights. Wow what a sight it is. I was amazed. I'm now thinking of getting a filter. To fully show galaxies and nebulae.

All in all a good night for me. My best night so far.

[iamjulian]

Excellent. Learning the constellations is a great place to start, and will serve you very well in the future. I should learn a few more myself.

M31 is indeed impressive. Did you manage to spot M32 which would have been in the same field of view. It looks like a bright fuzzy star rather than an elongated patch like M31.

Do you mean light pollution filter? The nebula filters OIII and UHC don't work on galaxies, if anything they will make them worse as they block more light.

[Astro Imp]

Hi Dave,

Great report, glad to see you found M31 for the first time, I saw it myself for the first time on Friday and was well impressed, having read many times that Galxies will only show as a faint smudge, well I have to say what a smudge

[swamp thing]

Hi

Nice haul of constellations you've bagged there.

M31 is a good capture too.

Iamjulian is correct, filters will not improve Galaxies as all filters block light.

The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say.

Regards Steve

[Skylook123]

Thanks for the narrative, Dave. Regarding a filter for galaxies, there are several flavors of filter available. Color filters are commonly used to pick details from planets, and neutral filters knock down the glare of the moon for better visual viewing. I use a lunar filter on Jupiter to knock down the glare as well, and it helps pull out the detail. Other filters are targeted for specific wavelengths, and come in two general types. First is the Narrow Bandwidth filter, such as O-III which only allows doubly ionized oxygen's light to pass (planetary nebulae), and H-Beta, which passes ionized hydrogen's light (emission nebulae). There are also combinations of these two, such as the Ultra High Contrast, which pass the O-III and H-Beta together, which give more detail on planetary nebulae and supernova remnants like The Veil and The Crab. The other type of common filter is the Light Polution Reduction filter, which is designed to block the common urban light bandwidths. These don't help against incandescent light, but they can help knock down the other common diffuse light sources and help pull brighter galaxies from the "light fog". Narrow band filters certainly are no help for anything other than nebulae of various types, but the wide band light polution reduction filters can be of help as long as the lighting isn't predominantly incandescent. No help available there. So, your neighbor's porch light is probably beyond help, but glare from the urban street lights can be surprisingly reduced by a good wide band filter (Ultrablock, Sky Glow, and others come to mind).

Good luck pulling more eye candy from your sky! And please keep writing; you'll enjoy reliving the experience, and we can learn from your effort.

[Dave1]

Hi guys. Thanks for all the hints and tips on filters guys. Yep i will keep you all posted. Sky has been horrible these last couple of days. With this new weather front.

Yep m31 was impressive. I round smudge of cloud looking. looked more round 3d like in the middle with a glow in the middle. Was very impressive always want to see a galaxy. Will keep me happy for awhile.

Yes my cousin who was into astonomy ten or so years ago. Told me not to get a computerised mount and scope. To learn the constillations to learn my way round. He recons it is the best way. They are slowly sinking in. With out fail. I remember of by heart now. The Ursa minor, Cassiopeia, the plough. Haven't quite seen all of the Ursa major yet. Some of it is below the horizon in the early evening. Pretty certain though. That i was get those new ones to stick. Each time i go out for a session. I look at all the constillation i know.

Unfortunately i didn't spot M32. I just put my my 2x barlow in to get a better look at M31. Then the cloud became to trouble some. The dew was also really bad that night. So i called it a night.

I don't share your greed, the only card I need is. The ace of spades the ace of spades.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Hi Dave, glad you enjoyed M31. M32 and M110 are most easily spotted if you do not use a barlow (low magnification is best on galaxies and nebulae). I generally use either my 40mm (51x) or 22mm (93x), and very rarely 17mm (119x) for smaller, higher surface brightness ones. As your scope is F/8 rather than F/10, the same surface brightness would be obtained at 32mm, 18mm, and 14mm. I assume you have either a 25 or 20 mm with that scope: these should be fine for galaxies. I had a 25mm ortho with my old 6" F/8, and it rarely left the focuser. I also had a 40mm in that scope, which gave me the best wide field views.

I did find that a wide-band LP-filter did help on some galaxies (but not all). UHC as mentioned above does not help at all on galaxies (but can work wonders on nebulae).

[todd8137]

sounds like a great night ,we had rain really heavy and hail stones we had some crazy weather i woke up around 12ish last night looked out the bedroom window clear as a bell hope tonight is clear for me

[andrew63]

Never thought about it in that way before michael - but in my F7 scope the three i use for DSO are 32 20 and 15 which are a close comparison to the above - i guess your eye will pick up whats best in relation to surface brightness to mag.

Dave, m31 is a great sight - have a look at M42 in orion - that should also blow you away!

andrew

[mjpfc]

As long as you can get away from nearby lights or lager areas of light pollution, a night of good seeing should present you with M31 to the naked eye.

I use it to guage the seeing (quicker than counting the stars in the square of pegasus) If I can see M31 then I know I'm going to have a good night hunting for faint Fuzzies.

Clear skies, Mick - Isle of Wight