A silly question about observing.

[StuartJPP]

I have seen M31 with my naked eye, with binoculars, through my camera's viewfinder with my "refractor" attached and through a friend's 6" SCT scope (with some or other eyepiece).

When I was at Kielder Observatory a short while ago I was dying to see what it looks like through their 20" Newtonian but of course it just happened to be cloudy that night. So what does it look like through a large aperture scope like this? Is it bright and easily visible? I'll more than likely go back there again but just wondered what I had missed.

[Lorne]

From my experience what you see can vary from night to night at the same location with the same scope (10") and eyepiece (28mm) - depending on seeing conditions. I have seen it as a small fuzzy patch with 1 of the companion galaxies visible and again on a different night as a larger fuzzy patch surrounded by a faint oval with both the companion galaxies plainly visible. Just try to plan your Kielder trip to a moonless night as that will help too.

[Moonshane]

dust lanes are very visible and there are even some globular clusters visible from darker sites apparently. the problem with more aperture though is more focal length and most scopes of 8" or more cannot fit the whole of M31 in their field of view.

[bingevader]

Isn't that where the enormous eyepieces come in?!

[swamp thing]

Had a quick butchers at M31 with my 20" Dob before I started work on it.

I was observing from a site with moderate LP. The scope was an open tube type with no shrouding meaning it was badly effected by extrenuous light (I had a buddy trying to shield it as best as possible with a sheet of ply ) from nearby "security" lights.

Using my wide field 31mm eyepiece the galaxy itself covered several fields of view the dust lanes were visible easy enough. TBH for M31 you need dark skies more than you need giant apertures. Looking forward to having another look from a dark sky when the scopes finished.

I have observed M31 from a really dark (VLM7) site in mid Wales with a 16" Dob. Very impressive indeed. The fine detail within the dark lanes is really a wow! Bear in mind though no big scope can get the whole galaxy in any one eyepiece FOV though, you tend to scan backwards and forwards accross several fields to take in the whole galaxy. A RFT or bins at the same type of site would get my vote.

[StuartJPP]

Thanks for the responses everyone, perhaps the next time I go I will get the opportunity to see the dust lanes (or anything for that matter).

Just try to plan your Kielder trip to a moonless night as that will help too.

I did go during new moon so that was a great on the night I didn't go to the observatory.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Swamp thing is spot on about good skies trumping aperture for M31. I have seen the major dust lanes in 15x70 bins, and even better with 80mm F/6 at 22x (with the 22mm Nagler). My C8 gives a bit more detail in the centre, and more texture to the dust lanes, but only from a very dark site in France. I have yet to see some of M31's globulars, that might need more aperture. I have spotted many of its satellite galaxies: M32 and M110, obviously, but NGC 147 and NGC 185 are also satellites. I am still chasing IC10, which is supposed to be another one.

[cotterless45]

Yep, seeing conditions rule with this an other deep sky objects. From a dark site on the Western Isles, the amount of detail and the loss of constellations in star fields will blow you away,

Nick.

[Astro_king]

I have enjoyed multiple views of M31 through different scopes and I have always noticed that seeing conditions define visibility best. I was able to resolve it to a bright core with some sort of arms from light polluted skies in manchester but that was the best I could do. I happened to be at the astronomy centre a while ago and totally forgot to focus on m31... felt gutted later on but bagged in m81 instead... a smal but bright core compared to M31.