M33

[greglloyd]

After acquiring a second hand Skywatcher 300 BKP back in June, I've been looking forward to seeing what galaxies look like in the 12". Obviously the summer doesn't bring much in the way of opportunities, and my time has mostly been spent on nebulae (extended and planetary).

Having viewed M51 in a 16" in Gran Canaria back in June which clearly showed spiral structure, I couldn't resist but jump up to a larger aperture to try and get some more galactic detail. 12" is about my limit for now due to storage limitations, etc. I had my fingers crossed that  the 12" wouldn't disappoint, but hadn't set my hopes too high due to the difference between these two scopes.

Over the past fortnight, I took the opportunity to study M33 to see if I could tease anything at all from this low surface brightness galaxy. Didn't expect too much, but in the end I got more than I had bargained for :-)

For my first view of this galaxy with the 12", I used the Delos 14mm (the lowest power I had to hand) giving 107x. Fairly high mag for M33, but that's all I had available at the time. As the object came into view, it filled the entire field of view. But, the first surprise was a clearly discernible 'S' shape of the two brightest spiral arms. I could clearly trace their full length with averted vision and view the brightest parts with direct vision.

NGC 604 was very bright at the bottom of the view with direct vision, and NGC 592 and 595 could be made out easily with averted vision and popped in and out of view with direct vision. 

There were a number of other bright patches in the two spiral arms (particularly south of the core - or above and to the right in the inverted eyepiece view) that could be seen with slight averted vision, and after a few moments of further study I could see hints of a third spiral arm. The rest of the disc was fairly faint - but teased with hints of further detail if I had studied a bit longer. 

All in all, much better than I had hoped for. M51 should do nicely in this scope (my previous views being in 8" to 10" from my home, and 16" in Gran Canaria). Just hoping for something in between where the structure will be detectable in the 12" whereas it was obvious in the 16".

I've just taken delivery of an ES Maxvision 28mm for use on larger objects and will be returning to M33 after the moon gets out of the way to hopefully get a lower magnification and brighter view of the overall disc with the larger exit pupil. 

Clear Skies!

[cotterless45]

Lovely report of a beautiful galaxy,

Nick.

[swamp thing]

Great report Greg.

M33 gives away plenty if your skies are good doesn't it

If your picking out the structure in M33 then M51 will look very nice indeed.

Cant beat those dark skies

[estwing]

The best view of m33 I've seen is with bins!...lovely bit of app 12"..kinda scope that will give you years of pleasure

[christhebrit]

Sounds great, keep us posted on you rediscoveries with this new 12"!

[greglloyd]

Will do :-)

[bish]

M33 is easily washed out but nice under dark skies. Filters can help bring out details too.