Unsure of what I saw last night?

[Oily]

I was looking for M31 'The Andromeda Galaxy' So I locate the Great Square and work my way along then up etc.But this cluster I found didn't look anything like the one in 'TLAO' ?In my Seben zoom at 24mm I could see this larger cluster in the bottom right hand corner and another slightly smaller cluster in the top left corner(if circles had corners )

It does say in TLAO from September to January for the Andromeda galaxy so was I expecting to much or have I missed it by a country mile?

[umadog]

Could you have seen the Double Cluster? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_cluster M31 will look like a hazy cloud. It will be very much smaller and fainter from a city than from a dark countryside location.

[sunshine185]

Have you seen the double cluster? Iirc its down that area but a bit more to the north, Andromeda for me is about the same fuzziness as m13, maybe a little fuzzier.

[rwilkey]

You may have gone too high and missed M31 altogether and perhaps ended up in Cassiopeia, which is particularly rich in open clusters and other great starfields of the Milky Way. I always use Cassiopeia and in particular the star Schedar as a pointer to M31, I can never find it coming up from the bottom ie the square of Pegasus.

[Spec-Chum]

Just find Mirach (middle star of the horizontal straight line of 3 as looking from the top-left corner of the great square) go straight up to next star, go same distance up again and you'll see a star just to the left of being in vertical straight line with the other 2. Just above and right of this is M31.

Simples

[Oily]

Could you have seen the Double Cluster? http://en.wikipedia..../Double_cluster M31 will look like a hazy cloud. It will be very much smaller and fainter from a city than from a dark countryside location.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a double cluster

Have you seen the double cluster? Iirc its down that area but a bit more to the north, Andromeda for me is about the same fuzziness as m13, maybe a little fuzzier.

It was quite fuzzy so maybe it was Andromeda??

I always use Cassiopeia and in particular the star Schedar as a pointer to M31, I can never find it coming up from the bottom ie the square of Pegasus.

I'll give that a try next time

Just find Mirach (middle star of the horizontal straight line of 3 as looking from the top-left corner of the great square) go straight up to next star, go same distance up again and you'll see a star just to the left of being in vertical straight line with the other 2. Just above and right of this is M31.

Simples

In theory,yes

Thanks for all the replies

[Astronut1982]

It sounds to me like what you saw was M31 & the satellite galaxy M110. Thats pretty much what it looks like through my scope except at dark sites, where I can make out faint dust lanes.

Jeff

[David Smith]

The thing that confused me the most is that most star atlases show M32 and M110 embedded in M31, whereas actually, unless your skies are really dark, they are quite well seperated from M31. Took me ages to convince myself I had actually seen all three objects!

[Oily]

It sounds to me like what you saw was M31 & the satellite galaxy M110. Thats pretty much what it looks like through my scope except at dark sites, where I can make out faint dust lanes.

Jeff

Me too,just wanted reassurance I was looking at M31/M110,cheers Jeff

The thing that confused me the most is that most star atlases show M32 and M110 embedded in M31, whereas actually, unless your skies are really dark, they are quite well seperated from M31. Took me ages to convince myself I had actually seen all three objects!

Confused me too!

[faulksy]

It sounds to me like what you saw was M31 & the satellite galaxy M110. Thats pretty much what it looks like through my scope except at dark sites, where I can make out faint dust lanes.

Jeff

thats what i was going to suggest, beat me to it though

[Scott]

i wouldn't know, i'm yet to see m31