M51

[Wedge]

I was looking for M51 tonight, and I think I did see it.

I could see two VERY faint star like points, with a tiny bit of nebulosity around them.

I was observing from relatively dark skies, however, my actual observing site was slightly illuminated, due to my neighbor not having any curtains, despite living here for over 15 years and I think that because of this, I wasn't properly dark adapted...

Is this what i should expect to have seen with a 6" f/5 newt, or should I have seen more.

Should I wait until the neighbor's lounge lights are not turned on and try again, when fully dark adapted - what should I be able to see?

[Sam]

M51 does look like a couple of points initially and then the fuzziness appears - In my 8" I can just start detecting a bit of the spiral arms. The two centres look quite bright.

[Wedge]

I would imagine that I will have to wait to be fully dark adapted.

If I am honest, I was so blow away by Saturn yesterday, I didn't really have the patience to look out for fuzzniess!

Thanks!

[Mark at Beaufort]

Wedge

Although I have a goto 5" SCT I decided that I wanted to find messier and caldwell objects by star jumping and going manual. How I succeeded was by printing individuals star maps (messier or caldwell objects) showing 2 degrees of FOV to match my eyepiece. I used Starry Night Pro 5 although I imagine Redshift or similar will be ok. These maps show stars down to 12th mag (approx) and then I compare the maps with what I see in the eyepiece. It works very well - in fact I saw M51 and NGC 5195 the other night very well in my 5 inch. Give it a go - it worked for me.

Mark

[Sfarndell]

I suffer from the same issues where I live...My LP test is the sword of Orion where I can just make out the main stars and M42.

However, I still struggle to see M51 as more than 2 bright points with fuzzy haze around them, even with a nebula filter.

[Casus belli]

If your eye isn't getting a chance to become properly dark adapted then you will suffer when looking for galaxies. My test is the beehive cluster. If I can see it with the naked eye then its galaxy time!

Definitely worth trying to see M51 again when its properly dark.