Found Andromeda, more questions

[bryanb1980]

I finally decided on a scope, an orion xt8, with a couple extra lenses.  I'm new with all this stuff though so bear with me.  I was looking tonight and read enough things to where I was able to find the Andromeda galaxy.  It was one of those, oh wow, so this is what it's like to look through a telescope moments.  It was unreal.  So anyways this may be an equipment question, not sure. I found it using a 38mm lens so I figured that once I put in my 13mm lens it would be even more impressive.  The view through the 13mm lens was actually worse than with the 38mm. Am I doing something wrong or is it best to view certain objects with lower powered lenses?  Any help would be much appreciated. Like I said, I'm a complete newbie but am very excited to learn the best ways to view objects.

Bryan

[brantuk]

"is it best to view certain objects with lower powered lenses?"

The answer to that one is "Yes". Galaxies appear as faint smudges or what is known as "fuzzy blobs" that would be easy to miss at high powers. Planets on the other hand are very bright and will stand high magnification for some awesome detail. Because fuzzy blobs are so faint the only real thing that improves the view is extra aperture.

You would see detail in M31 (core, dust lanes, etc) with something like a 20"+ dobsonian. I saw it last year with such a scope and a 35mm wide angle eyepiece and it was phenomenal. Galaxies are big so wide angle and low powers are the way to go. Credit to you for finding it though Bryan - you're well on the way and the xt's are nice scopes.

[Stu]

Hi Bryan,

Congratulations on finding Andromeda, no mean feat when you are starting out :-).

You are not doing anything wrong at all, and your comment is correct, some objects are much larger than others and look better in lower power eyepieces.

Andromeda is actually huge, both literally, being and enormous galaxy, but also in how big it appears to us. It is something around 6 times the area of the moon. The moon is around half a degree across, Andromeda is roughly 3 x 1 degree in size.

I'm not sure exactly which eyepiece you were using, but the 38mm gives a magnification of x31. Assuming it has an apparent field of view of 70 degrees then you would see an actual field of view of 2.25 degrees. This is enough to fit most of Andromeda in, as the outer parts need dark skies to be visible.

The 13mm would give x92, and under 1 degree of sky so you would only see the central core of the Galaxy.

These images may help, the two circles represent roughly the view through the two eyepieces.

This one shows the relative size vs the moon.

Hope that is of some use.

Cheers,

Stu

[ronin]

Never think that as an object to look at that M31 is that good, it does not fit easily in almost any visual scope and there is little structure to see owing to the angle it is at. Nice to know where it is and to find it, people tend to ask about it. Processed Hubble images do not help.

For structure you need a face on spiral, try M51, M74, M81. They are at a better angle to us to see the arms, M74 is the faintest of the 3.

[Astro Imp]

Well done on finding M31 first time of trying, not easy!!!  

I don't know what time you were observing last night but if the moon was still up this will have seriously limited the view through your scope. Try to observe DSOs when the moon is out of the way it makes a significant difference.

Good luck and clear skies.

[bryanb1980]

Thanks for the feedback everybody! I was up late last night because I wanted to see Jupiter, I thought Andromeda was cool until I found the Orion Nebula.  Andromeda was basically like a smudge but I could see a lot of detail in the Orion Nebula and it was by far the coolest thing I saw on my first night. The 38mm lens I was using was a 2 in lens with a 70 degree field of view(not sure if that is the right way to describe it, it says 70 degrees on it.)   Is the best way to figure out what lenses work best for different objects to just experiment?? Brown Dwarf, thanks for the input on what to look for, any other suggestions from anybody?  Is there some kind of like 'must see' list of things to find in the scope when you're starting out?  I downloaded Stellarium and it helped me tremendously but even with that there still a massive amount of objects to observe.  Thanks again for helping out a newbie!

[Schorhr]

Depending on the conditions, sometimes a higher magnification will give the best results, sometimes a lower magnification will show the most.

As for deepsky objects, try the dumbell, ring nebula, the double cluster, Albireo double star, and others that are even better visible this time of year.

The one's around the big dipper are already a bit low but still worth a try.

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/stellar/scenes/english/deepsky3.htm

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/stellar/scenes/english/deepsky4.htm

(the most spectacular ones are marked)

[Andy_E]

Well done on finding M31, I think everyone remembers the first time they saw it. The whole galaxy is visible (almost) at 32mm in my 10" dob, which as 1200mm I believe is the same as the Orion scope. Personally, I find 19mm the best (at 63x) as at this point some of the dust lanes nearer the core are visible from dark skies. You might just pick these out if conditions are favourable with your 8" dob from dark skies (and by dark, I mean DARK). I'm not usually a fan of dust but I make an exception for galaxies and nebulae . Happy galaxy hunting!

[John]

Congratulations on finding M31.

You need a really wide angle of view to see the whole of the Andromeda galaxy as it's 3-4 degrees in total extent, thats 6-8x the diameter of the moon !.

Much of the time we are viewing the core of the galaxy. It's nice to see M32 and the fainter M110 close to M31 in a low power eyepiece though.

[bryanb1980]

John - I think from what you said I must have seen the core??? I was using a 70 degree eyepiece and what I saw was fairly small.  Maybe I was actually looking at something else lol.  I followed the maps and was pretty certain it was M31, it was definitely a small oval shaped fuzzy object.  I'm thinking I was just able to see the core.  You guys are an invaluable resource though, I appreciate it.  I will have to check out the objects you guys have mentioned.

[John]

WIth the Orion XT8 a 38mm 70 degree eyepiece shows around 2.2 degrees of sky at 31.6x which is enough field to show the oval core of M31, M32 as a fuzzy star to one side of it and M110 as a much fainter diffuse patch of light a little further away on the other side of the core of M31. All should appear in the same field of view at that magnification.

[Stu]

Yep, that's all in my original answer, with a screenshot from SkySafari showing the two views with the 38 and 13mm eps.

Cheers,

Stu

[Moonshane]

Nice session and Orion too! I actually disagree with some of the comments in that most galaxies are actually quite small and do sometimes need a bit more magnification to confirm them well but you are better using lower power to initially find them. M31 is a bit of a special case as no other galaxy is as big.

the magnification required for an object varies with size. some planetary nebulae need quite high power and some open clusters and emission nebulae need as wide a field as you can get and even then don't fit in some scopes - e.g. M45, the Pleiades won't fit in the field of two if my scopes and for viewing that entirely, I use my finder scope.

dark skies have more impact than anything else when it comes to faint objects. recently at a very dark site I could see almost as much around Sagittarius with my 7x36 binoculars as I can at home with a 12/16" scope.

[Tinker1947]

Clusters will be a awe inspiring moment, if you haven't found any already.....M13 and M92 are well placed......