Andromeda still there after 35yrs

[neil groves]

Well my new scope arrived yesterday so I spent an hour assembling it in the afternoon then went out in the back yard for a test run in the evening, I targeted Mizar and of course split it with no problem, I also found Altair and although I split it, I didn't see too much in the way of colour difference between the companions, one is yellow and the other a blue, maybe it needs imaging to bring out the colours? My last target for last night was the Andromeda galaxy (M31), it took a while to find and I ended up aligning the finder scope on a bright star and used that, made it sooo much easier. I found the galaxy as a small grey smudge at 20X, I cranked up the power to 60X and spent a couple minutes just staring at it, the longer I stared at it, the more irredisent it seem to get as my eyes adjusted to the scene, I couldn't make out any spiral, dust lanes or any other detail but it seemed to glow from within and held my attention for some time, I can't wait now to get my adapter to fit my camera to the scope, then will begin a steep learning curve

I also looked for the ring nebular in Lyra but failed to find it.

Neil.

[Scott]

Glad to hear you had a nice night with the new set-up, The ring can be tricky, but once found, you'll wonder how you missed it.

As a matter of interest, what 'scope do you have? I used to live in San Fransisco (Birmingale?) although it was 48 yrs ago .

Keep the posts coming... it's nice to hear whats happening on the other side of the pond

[neil groves]

I have the Orion 9005 AstroView 120ST Equatorial Refractor, nearly fell off my chair when I pulled the tube out of the box, so much bigger than the 90mm I had as a kid

Neil.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Welcome back to this great hobby. M31 is always great fun. Could you pick out M32 and M110? Under good skies they should be well within range of your scope.

[cotterless45]

welcome back to the real world of the refractor ! Must be a lovely feeling to start over again. M 57 can be shy in brighter skies,

Nick.

[neil groves]

No Michael, just saw the main disk but The area of sky I was in was LP'd quite bad, i'll try again later in the year when it has moved over a little, or maybe i'll brave the small hours tee hee!

Neil.