Tonights observing session. No joy with Galaxies. Advice needed please

[ubertank]

Hey everyone,

So tonight I got out with my 8" skyliner 200P dob from 9pm until 12pm. The cold at this stage was just unbelievable so we called it a night.

On our first outing we had great views of a lot of the easy located sites; Orion Nebula, Jupiter, Andromeda. Tonight I had a plan for us I put together with Stellarium and I wanted to look for:

The Ring Nebula in Lyra - Was too low on Horizon at this time so couldn't get to it sadly

M51

M101

M103 in Cassiopeia.

Triangulum Galaxy

All locations were well researched and we did a good amount of searching but we didn't manage to locate any of them sadly, so I'm after some advice as to why this may have been. Firstly we were looking in an area that was way more light polluted than I had first though. it is at least 3 or 4 miles away from a town, but perhaps 15 miles to the centre of Birmingham. This site is at least three miles from the nearest town, but the sky was still a shade of orange in most directions. Around Cassiopeia the sky was dark enough, but we couldn't spot M103.

I wondered if we couldn't spot them because we were "scouting" for them with too high an EP. We were aiming with the Rigel quickfinder, and then using our lowest EP of 25mm.

Would a lower EP help us? Should these objects be relatively easy to find through this scope with this EP? If so what level of light pollution is going to be too much?

Thanks in advance for any help and advice you're able to offer. I'm resisting a GOTO as I am very keen to learn the sky myself first, but tonight we came away empty as far as new objects was concerned.

[ubertank]

Re reading that post I think I am giving off the impression that the area is really light. On the ground it's not, it's really quite dark and in the countryside. Orion, Taurus and Andromeda were absolutely stunning and the nebula in Orion shows up really clearly. We had a circle above us where these constellations are which was untouched by light pollution and really dark, but in all directions it seemed to stretch up quite high from the horizon.

The "handle" on Ursa Major was possibly too close to the horizon for M51 to be easily viewable, but it's more the lack of spotting the triangulum which I found strange.

[Bart]

Hello Uber

I'd say first off you picked some tough ones there to start off with.

M33 (Triangulum) is a tough one at the best of times. Its very gib, but faint. You'd need relatively dark shies for that. You're looking for something like a transparent tissue. Wait until you have more experience and dark skies.

M51 and ant Ring are too low these evenings. Wait until next year for them.

M101 can be tough as well. I'd suggect leaving that until next year also.

M103 should be doable though.

Try the Double cluster, M31, M81/82, M35/36/37/38, they are nice and relatibely easy

Don't lose heart, just think you set a tough task for yourself intially with those targets

Good luck

Barry

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

The Triangulum is a tough target, it has really low surface brightness. I have moderate-good skies and even i find it tough to locate. I'm pretty sure if you can get good views of andromeda and orion that you'l at least detect some others just about.

Keep trying. The 25mm is fine for the job. Maybe try m81 & m82 next time, they'l be high and can be fairly obvious.

[John]

As has been said, the targets you have picked are tough ones. At best, even with an 8" scope, they will look like very faint patches of light and any light pollution may well make them impossible to pick out.

As jimmyjamjoejoe suggests, Messier 81 and 82 in Ursa Major are much easier to see. The best galaxies to view in my opinion.

Using your lowest magnification eyepiece to find them is the right way to go though.

With the exception of a few objects, galaxies are very challenging objects to see.

[Paulb3098]

Hi, Have a go at the double clusters in Perseus or the M52 and NGC457 in Cassiopeia, both are open cluster and are a nice view with a 25mm EP. I also like double stars, Shedir in Cassiopeia is a yellow main and red companion, you may need higher magnification to split them about x125. Good luck.

[earth titan]

M33 is a real challenge. Wouldn't surprised if you can't find it!

Would suggest GOTO won't help too much. It is not the be all solution to finding stuff.

Galaxies are a bit like buses! Once you find one, you won't understand what the difficulty was.

Patience is the key.

Typed by me on my fone, using fumms... Excuse eny speling errurs.

[ubertank]

Thanks again for all of the helpful replies.

[Mike73]

Two very important things for viewing galaxies are dark skies and well dark adapted eyes.

By the sounds of it your skies are dark enough but using a laptop even in night mode will still effect your night vision. Using a dim red torch and paper charts are still the way to go.

[bingevader]

It is a tough list.

I usually try for mix of objects so I don't go in disappointed at not having found them all.

Try a variety of guides/books too.

I spent ages last week trying to find M33 star hopping one particular route.

Last night I tried a different route from a different book and Bob's your uncle.

I was still very faint and fuzzy however!

Cheers

[VigdisVZ]

Was the moon up?

If so, even a relatively dark site wont show you fainter objects like say M33.

[acey]

Your targets should have been easily observable with an 8" at a dark site and you had no Moon. So the possibilities are:

1. Looking in the wrong place.

2. Sky too bright.

3. Eyes not adapted.

4. Not knowing what to expect.

You say you were 15 miles from Birmingham and there was orange right round the horizon. Had there been clouds overhead then they would have looked orange. The sky was very clear last night (and cold) so there would have been little back-scatter of light-pollution to the ground, but the orange glow all around would mean that your eyes would adapt to that level, making the sky above look black when possibly, to a better adapted eye, it would have looked orange. 15 miles is not far from a major city - you might need to go further. A place that looks like wild countryside in daytime can have an urban-looking sky at night. Even so, you ought to have been able to see at least most of the targets under those conditions. So maybe you just didn't know what to expect, and the objects were in your field of view but you didn't recognise them.

[cosmological]

Sometimes you can't see the light pollution when the skies are clear so you could be forgiven for thinking there's no light pollution, if you were then to take a time exposure of the sky then the light pollution would show up.

Birmingham's a big city so going 15 miles away won't be enough.