What am I missing?

[Brasher]

First off I am really new to this, and normally quite smart, but I think I'm missing something . I just purchased an Orion SpaceProbe 130ST and it's been beautiful clear skies in the country of Western Michigan for the past 3 nights. I have sat outside for a total of about 6 hours in the past 3 nights and I've really enjoyed my peaceful time outside. BUT!! Upon starting this I learned to start at 25mm lens. It doesn't look like anything more than looking at the stars with the naked eye but a touch brighter. BTW I was focusing on Andromeda. So I switched to 10mm and it's hardly any different than the 25mm. Is there something wrong with my telescope. From all I've read the SpaceProbe 130ST can see deep space objects, so unless I have superman eyes and can see better than a telescope something must be wrong. HELP!!!

[hjw]

Hi,

I am new here too, so welcome to the forum. Size is not the problem with DSOs. In fact, Andromeda (M31) is a few times bigger than the full moon. The problem is the amount of light coming from these objects. To give you an idea, I am chasing some bright nebulas in the southern sky - just with a camera and a 300mm lens. I start off with a wide shot of the general area (30 sec and ISO6400) I can see some smuges of colour indicating the presence of a DSO. I then zoom in and take 30 x 30sec images which I will later superimpose (stack). Only then do I see the nebula with its colours.

To an observer, M31 will be a faint haze (unless you have a really large scope). Have a look again and stick with the lowest magnification.

Good luck and clear skies!

HJW

[Dave In Vermont]

Nothing is wrong with either your scope, or your eyes. A telescope is designed to gather light/photons. The larger the aperture of the scope - the more light it gathers. This allows you to see and/or photograph/image objects that are beyond your natural range of seeing. Which is down to stellar magnitude of 6-ish in a truly dark-sky location.

Many people just entering the world of astronomy and telescopes honestly have, for one reason or another, unfounded expectations. They believe things "up there" would/should look like the pictures in magazines and TV programs - if they have a telescope. Well - they don't. So you have arrived at the true beginning of your education, Grasshopper. Welcome aboard! But don't despair - you have come to a good place to learn about what you can see up there, where it is, and how to go about finding such.

The amazing pictures of multi-coloured nebulae and galaxies are possible to do, but require a steep learning-curve into astrophotography and rather deep pockets to bankroll such. I'd suggest you leave that for now and start off by learning the sky and how best to use the equipment you have now. A good star-charting software program is an excellent resource. One of the very best is Stellarium - and it is free to download and use:

http://www.stellarium.org/

Another, also free, is Cartes du Ciel - French for Sky Charts. Fear not, it's in English:

http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/start

These are quite large, so download when you have a bit of time. Instructions are available - and so is this site!

A good book you may enjoy, that will get you running is "Turn Left at Orion." Google it. It won't cost too much.

And there you go for now! Welcome!

Clear Skies,

Dave

[glynnlondon]

I have the skywatcher version of your scope and it is a great little scope but andromeda looks like a fuzzy blob in mine as well.

The problem with the dust lanes in the spiral arms is that they are quite faint and any light pollution will wash them out leaving just the bright nucleus.

Darker skies may help tease out more detail.

[ronin]

Andromeda never lives up to expectations, most people see the central bulge and that is a ball of stars, the arms so dim and seeing structure is difficult (big, big, scope) and the whole lot is at a fairly shallow angle to us so even less chance of observing the structure of the arms. Will be better I suppose in about 3 billion years, but bigger still.

All the images you see of it will have been processed. A simple but often overlooked bit is those red/pink areas that are referred to as "star forming" they are infra-red - just outside our visual range. The HST has done some good things for astronomy and has got a lot of people interested, but many expect hubble images, or similar, through a scope.

As has been said it is big, as in very big and is not going to fit in the view of most scopes, even with your 25mm you will just get 2/3 of Andromeda in view, with the 10mm then only the blob that is the core of Andromeda. Even a 32mm plossl will not get it all in.

Try for M33 or M81, M33 is fairly near to M31 it is smaller, it all fits in view and it is face on, so you can possibly see some structure easier.

Historically it was always referred to as the Andromeda Nebula, and a nebula is a diffuse cloud. Which if you think about it like that starts to give an idea of what to expect.

[Astro Imp]

Hi and a warm welcome to the forum

You have been given good advice above, I would also point you in the direction of a very good thread that Qualia posted a year ago that gives a very good approximation of what you can expect to see at the eyepiece, look here:- http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/196278-what-can-i-expect-to-see/

Good luck.

[Astrosurf]

To be honest, I find planetary nebulae, like the Ring Nebula (M57) and the Dumbbell (M27), far more interesting visually than galaxies, even though they're small. They can be quite bright. Plus have a look at globular clusters like M13, or the Double Cluster (NGC 869 and 884). Lovely sights.

Alexxx