M31

[gooseholla]

I was out viewing m31 tonight, and noticed that it is quite hard to define the galaxy itself, by that I mean its boundaries, everything around it seems to appear in glare. Therefore, I ask, from this rough sketch, what is the dot found in the glare/ patch of light. Is it a star that merely gets washed out, or something else?

Quick explanation of the sketch (to be finalised tomorrow). The central circle is the bright core, and the patch around it is what I think is the rest of the galaxy! The outer circular patch is haze/glare which is hard to tell whether it is still part of the galaxy or not. The three points are three pin pricks of light that appeared near the haze for reference. But one was inside (has an arrow on pic). contrast has been changed on comp to see it better.

Sketch done from 12 inch at 80x magnification.

[Stu]

Is that not M32? Appears quite stellar I think and is within the overall area of M31 whereas M110 is just outside.

M31 is huge, you only really get any idea of its real size at dark sites

Stu

[JamesF]

Is that not M32? Appears quite stellar I think and is within the overall area of M31 whereas M110 is just outside.

That's the way I've always interpreted it.

James

[gooseholla]

I think you'll find that M32 is just up to the left and m 110 down to the right. I drew them seperately. Definately not points of light like stars!

[cotterless45]

At x80 I don't think you'd get a third of this appearance , especially in a dark sky. What will show up is granulation and dust lanes, nice.

Your arrow does point to a superimposed star.It's one that I try and focus on to get dust lanes and granulation.Using a pair of 8x30 bins will show you the full size, the edges bleached if there's light pollution.

Carry on with the drawings, there's so much to see that there's not time for faafffing about taking pictures!!!!

Nick.

[Stu]

Well, to be fair it's quite hard to interpret the sketch and hard to judge field of view. Was simply trying to help and make some suggestions.

Stu

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Even at 80x a Nagler fits only a tiny part in a single FOV. Thus, if you have the core centred in the FOV you will not see the edges of the galaxy. I use my 80mm scope at 22x to get the view of the whole galaxy, and use the C8 at 65.5x with the Nagler 31 to get detail.

[gooseholla]

Here is a more revised sketch.

The central darker parts are meant to be where it is brighter, but the camera didn't pick it up very evenly. It was a more uniform wash of light than my meager skills convey. The outer part is more of the haze. The top left is a pointer to M31, bottom to North.

[nightfisher]

Nice sketch, i maneaged a quick look at M31 tonight with the ZS70 and BST12mm