Andromeda Galaxy with Skywatcher 200P

[Singlin]

What sort of detail should I expect to see with my Skywatcher 200P Newtonian whilst observing the Andromeda Galaxy?

The detail I saw this evening was a faint blob. My latitude is 54°

and my viewing time was at 21:00 hrs GMT.My altitude is 1670 meters and the sky was completely clear.

I am waiting for my EQ6 mount to arrive and I am having trouble manually finding objects in the sky with my standard EQ5.

Has anyone managed to accurately setup the EQ5 in the home position without a skyscan?

Regards,

Simon

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

a blob sounds about right. The darkness of your sky will dictate how bright/big the blob is, as will your dark adaptation. In a really dark place, with fully adapted eyes, you might be able to see some dark banding across it from the spiral arms if you stare long enough...

[sunshine185]

In lp Oldham,I just see a small blob.

[Skybrowser]

The fuzzy blob you saw will probably be about right but check your collimation. Those lovely spirals and dust lanes only really come out on images.

I suspect you may have some light pollution where you live (not many of us live in really dark areas) but on the odd night you may get a bit more detail. Get your eyes really well dark adapted and stay away from observing bright objects like the moon. Trying a bit of averted vision sometimes helps pick out some detail but that takes time to get used to.

[Gloris]

I think i may have found it the other day too, and it seemed alot fainter/smaller than I was expecting....for a while I thought I'd only found the M110 nearby and wondered why I couldn't see the M31....but after a bit of reading and understanding what other's have seen, I'm sure that the faint "blob" I saw, was Andromeda. I do have quite heavily light polluted skies...darn lamp post right behind my house.

I'm going to try again next time we have clear skies though. I found out while observing the Orion Nebula (which is probably my favourite part of the sky so far), that the longer you stare at something up there, the more detail you start to see, and the easier it is to make you the shape and even some more of the tonal differences. I'm still very new to all this, but if the Orion Nebula is anything to go by, it's definitely worth spending some time on an object and letting those details come through.

::EDIT::

I also have a Skywatcher 200p by the way (Dobsonian mount)

[swamp thing]

Hi Simon

How much detail you can see is more often than not directly linked to how dark and transparent the sky is from where you are observing.

However. You should be able to pick out one of the dust lanes pretty easily if your sky is reasonable. I have seen the easier one with a 4" scope from less than ideal skies.

Keep at it buddy you'll get there.

Regards Steve

[umadog]

Steve is absolutely right: it's all down to the skies. M31 from dark skies is quite dramatic. Here is what an experienced observer sees through an 8" from dark skies: http://www.deepskywatch.com/images/sketches/M31-Andromeda-galaxy-sketch.jpg That's a pretty accurate representation.

The dust lanes may require a little experience to see because, although visible, they look a little different in a sketch compared to what you see at the eyepiece. You need to keep your eye out for an absence in nebulosity rather than a dark band. From light polluted skies you will see only the central core of the galaxy. Gently panning the scope across the sky will help to bring out the fainter details.

[Singlin]

Thank you for the replys.

My skies are extremely dark with no light pollution.

I live in the Italia ALps and I live outside of the village.

Maybe a was looking at something els nearby.

[umadog]

Lucky you! If your skies are dark then you will easily be able to see M31 with the naked eye. You will have a perception of fuzziness when you look at it. It's not massively salient but it's definitely visible.

Looking at the light-pollution map you may be in one of the better regions in your area (The World Atlas of the Artificial Night Sky Brightness). Black means zero light pollution. As you can see, virtually all of mainland Europe is light polluted. The US east coast is the same. Japan is even worse. The colours are a rule of thumb but can be interpretted this way: ClearDarkSky Light Pollution Map (scroll down). As you can see, Blue (which may be where you are) is very good going indeed. Although skies can be darker, not a huge amount is lost from a good Blue site. Depending on exactly where you are, you might find it worth your while to travel on occasion as you may not be too far from yet dark skies.