Why Cant I see M51 ??

[scottphillips]

Hey guys, i have a travelscope 70 and have been able to pick out Andromeda without too much troubly in the past few days but cannot seem to be able to view M51 ?? It is easier to find because the big dipper is quite high in the sky for me here and i know how to locate m51 but thats all i can see through my scope are 2 small stars ? 

[algol]

You might need darker skies mate, I think a bit more aperture may help. I haven't seen it in my 130 due to my lightish skies, gonna try the 200 on it

[Moonshane]

the moon will really wash out galaxies

M51 is also face on which means the galaxy is much more diffuse and affected by light pollution (inc the moon) than side on galaxies like M31.

if your skies are dark then you should see M51 with your scope but it will be quite faint still.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Your 70 mm scope can catch it, but as others said, it needs darker skies than the Andromeda galaxy. It is a lot fainter and smaller. Wait for darker nights, and you should be able to get it. M81 and M82 are slightly easier targets, by comparison

[jabeoo1]

Despite the whirlpools easy location in the sky it remains frequently elusive.  I can not see it with my 10inch reflector from my back garden in Bristol, and i am not surprised in hindsight to finding it in 50mm binoculars under very dark skies, it was very faint to say the least.  It has low surface brightness which is easily washed out by little light pollution.  It's distance does not help us.

[cotterless45]

Light pollution, the Moon and the not too dark summer skies don't help. I did catch both core in an 80mm achro, but from a dark site. It can be a most beautiful target with bigger aperture,

Nick.

[John]

Dark skies are needed as has been said plus it's quite a tough object to spot with 70mm of aperture. It's really not going to "jump out at you" even under dark skies to be honest but it can be seen as a pair of small and faintly glowing misty cores.

[Davey-T]

Saw it recently using 110 refractor from a very dark site and then could only see the two cores, I blame all those imagers for raising our expectations 

Dave

[swamp thing]

From my nearest observing spot (VLM5) it's doable in my 15x70 bins. Not easy but doable.

The darker the skies the better though.

Saw it recently using 110 refractor from a very dark site and then could only see the two cores, I blame all those imagers for raising our expectations   Dave

You'll need a smidge more aperture for pulling detail out of this object. Your 10" LX200 should do very nicely

[John]

I've seen the spiral structure in M51 quite clearly with a 12" scope from a dark site. From my moderately light polluted back garden I can almost see that structure with the same aperture but it needs averted vision to detect the traces of it.

[Dude_with_the_tube]

from dark site spirals are clear in my 14",from home i struggle to make any spirals,where from home in my 90mm frac its a smudge,as such in 70mm its going to be even less.You will need bigger apperture for this i am afraid.

[Bart]

My garden has a limiting mag of about 5.6 and got it in my 6". The 10" was even better. The 16" was showing relatively good detail, but do realise that 16" is cheating [emoji15]

Barry

[Davey-T]

From my nearest observing spot (VLM5) it's doable in my 15x70 bins. Not easy but doable.

The darker the skies the better though.

You'll need a smidge more aperture for pulling detail out of this object. Your 10" LX200 should do very nicely

Well I'm not taking that on holiday with me 

Dave

[pyrasanth]

I saw M51 recently in my 11" Celestron. Just 2 very faint smudges of light. I only caught any detail when I put the CCD on & did a very quick exposure. This is a very rough 480 second exposure-unguided & very little post processing.

[pyrasanth]

Sorry the image I took went wrong- here is the sample (I hope). This is very raw. I noticed my CCD needs cleaning as well. Notice the round moats caused by dust on the protective screen!

[Davey-T]

A few flats will get rid of them , wouldn't clean it.

Dave

[scottphillips]

Despite the whirlpools easy location in the sky it remains frequently elusive.  I can not see it with my 10inch reflector from my back garden in Bristol, and i am not surprised in hindsight to finding it in 50mm binoculars under very dark skies, it was very faint to say the least.  It has low surface brightness which is easily washed out by little light pollution.  It's distance does not help us.

im also in bristol so would explain it then probably wait for a clear sky when the moon is not visible and head away from city light