My first view of M31

[jbdtaylor]

So tonight I decided to take advantage of the (finally) clear sky, deciding to try my hand at finding something which would provide me with a challenge. After a lot of time trying to find it (most of that time spent looking at 3 different charts, trying to figure out where I was!) I managed to get it. I think I'd already passed by it a few times to be honest, but only came to noticing it after my eyes had adjusted a little more.

I'm not going to say I was blown away by it, but I certainly wasn't disappointed. After all, that thing is millions of light years away! However, it was very dark, and the shape could only really be made out in the peripheral vision. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure I had got the right thing, I spent a while observing what was around it and trying to compare it to the charts I had. After a while I just decided to draw it and its surroundings and compare them on Stellarium when I got back in. That confirmed that it was the galaxy.

Now, I know I don't have the best telescope, and that's a huge factor. But I was wondering, how much more visible will it become when it is higher in the sky? I only got it at around 13 degrees, and not much further down from that is a streetlamp.

Will it appear much brighter when higher? How much so? Will I be able to make out much more detail?

What it is supposed to be? Around magnitude 4? Because it certainly didn't seem like it, could this be light pollution "washing" it out with it being so low?

[Double Kick Drum]

In answer to your questions;

1. If you only viewed it 13 degrees above the horizon it would appear feinter. You are looking through more atmosphere at that elevation, together with light pollution from other towns in the area.

2. Although it will appear brighter when close to its zenith, M31 will only appear as a large and quite bright fuzzy patch.

3. Unless you have inky black skies and a slightly larger telescope (i'm assumng the scope in your pic is what you are using), the spiral arms are probably out of reach. The magnitude 4 that M31 is quoted at represents the overall light emitted from the galaxy. Because it is relatively close for a galaxy (2.3m light years), it appears large and the light is spread out over a substantial area. This is also true of M33 and M101 which are very dissappointing given their published magnitudes of 6.5 and 7 (approx.).

The core of a galaxy is what you will see in the vast majority of cases but some give away more detail, particularly if you have a dark sky. Good examples to view are M82 (which is side on and in the same field of view as M81), M104 the Sombrero galaxy (the famous dust lane is visible in modest scopes), M64 the Black-Eye galaxy and the Leo triplet (M65, M66 and NGC 3628 - not so much for quality, as quantity. Many galaxies appear in groups).

Sadly most galaxies simply appear as feint smudges but you must remember that these can be anything from 2.5m to over 100m light years away. A bigger scope will naturally see even more distant objects.

There are many galaxies between mag. 8 and 10 which should be within your range. So long as their surface brightness is high enough, you should be able to see quite a few.

Happy hunting!

[swamp thing]

As DKD outlined above, the key here is dark skies, galaxies get very shy whenever any LP rears its ugly head. I've had the finest views of M31 through 15x70 bins from a visual mag 7 site. Even though I had a 16" Dob alongside. The Dob showed amazing detail but the wider field of the bins was staggering.

Galaxies need dark skies first, aperture a definite second. The spiral arms of M33 & M101 are amazing from dark sites, but you can barely even see the galaxies from sites with any LP.

[Astralstroll]

I live in a fairly light polluted suburb of Bristol. If at a favourable elevation, I can see M31 reasonably well, but the atendant M32 and M110 are there, but rather dim. Other such delights as M51 and M101 eluded me for quite a while, but a combinatno of good skies the other week as well as a very favourable elevation (ie nearly overhead), they were visible, but only just in the case of M101. Explains why i had no success with the 20 x 80 bins!! I am eagerlay awaiting an experience of a much darker site, hopefully sometime soon!

Dave.