What am I doing wrong ?

[paul schofield]

Hello SGL, I had quite a good night observing last night, nice clear skies for a change. I was looking for M31 for an hour or so & I just dont seem to be able to get it with my scope. I started off with a Meade 26mm super plossl, no joy for about an hour, using Cassiopeia as pointer, so switched to 18mm BST and still no luck. Finally gave up with M31 to look at other things. Then an hour later 21:00 I tried M31 again with my 15x70 bino's and got it straight away. Why is it so hard to find with my scope ? or am I just being thick? My new scope is coming on Tuesday from FLO so will be going from 130mm to 203mm, will Galaxy hunting be a bit easier with this? sky conditions permitting of course. Any advice on this silly question will be greatly received. Thanks all.

[assasincz]

It rather depends on what sort of finderscope you use. With my former, and frankly, terrible 30mm toy-ish plastic fiderscope, finding M31 was unfeasible, because the finderscope was so poor there was nothing to be seen trough it.

However, I suggest you starhop from β Andromedae through μ Andromedae all the way to M31, it seems easier to me than using Cassiopea

[Tinker1947]

I use a Telrad Finder and the Telrad maps there free plus Stellarium thats free as well so find your DSO in Stellirium, get the right map, set Stellarium FOV to 4 degrees so its the same as your Terad view, then use the Telrad to find the DSO, bit of practice and its gets easier, you can still do it with out the Telrad but you have to imagine where the circles would be.

http://www.custerobservatory.org/docs/messier1.pdf

[brantuk]

I find it naked eye first, then confirm with the binocs, then nudge the scope around to it. But it helps knowing where to look. If you're still struggling - get a laser pointer and hold it against the main tube parallel to the finder scope shoe. Then point the ota. You'll get very close and should see it in the finder that way. Then refine pointing the ota.

[Tinker1947]

The other thing to bear in mind is when your looking through your scope the FOV is very narrow maybe less than 1 degree, so the slightest nudge and you DSO goes off the EP, i have found getting the scope to where i think the DSO is then mount a camera and take a 20 second sub, will show a grey blob or star cluster ect somewhere on the image, then use this to centre your DSO.

[Stu]

I would agree with assassincz that star hopping from beta andromadae is easier. I certainly have always managed quite easily that way.

Probably obvious but make sure your finder scope is properly aligned with the scope otherwise it makes it much trickier

Good luck

Stu

[Stu]

Will be significantly easier with 203 mm by the way

Stu

[paul schofield]

Thanks for that guys, I will put those points to the test. Unfortunately I have never been able to see M31 with naked eye as yet, I wish my local skies were darker but alas moderate L.P. Will be finding dark sites in the near future or darker anyway. Thanks again everyone.

[todd8137]

you should see it easy with the scope and ep,is the finder scope align with the scope?, seeing may not have been great andyou may have seen it ,but it is dim and you may have missed it,i can see it with a 90mm refractor keep looking you will by hook or cross come across it at some point,m101 was the same for me no mater how hard i looked a could not see it until some one pointed out how and where to look not sure how much more 70 mm is gonna make but you may ,may see a difference ,whats the colamination like on the 1300mm ?

[paul schofield]

Collimation is as far as I am aware OK. Then again having had the scope for a year and never collimated it may be a bit off. De-focussing on a star, the rings are perfect. I may try again tonight with M31, maybe I was just unlucky last night. Thanks for that Todd. Going to have a crash course with collimating on Tuesday when new scope arrives.