Andromeda, C 14 the Double Cluster & IC 1805/1848 heart & Soul Nebula Reality Vs Expectations

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Tonight was a good cool evening which offered me hope for the fall after a frustrating humidity and bug filled summer of not observing enough.

At midnight I started out with Andromeda.  It was easy enough to find with my Barska 15 x 70's and much higher in the sky than earlier in the summer when I wheeled the scope up the hill to spy a view.  In my Z10 under my magnitude 3.75 skies @ 42x I could see what I assume was the center of the galaxy and a fuzzy spot towards the end of the field of view eye piece top left.  The distance seems wrong based on Stellarium's guess of my FOV but I wonder if it was M32?  Either way Andromeda was not anywhere near as impressive as the Stellarium shows even with my sky conditions put in.  Maybe I have a setting wrong.

Somewhat disappointed in what I want to be one of my favorite targets I went after the nearby Double Cluster next.  The loose horseshoe of stars at the top left was easy enough to find in the binoculars and then my finder.  THIS THING POPPED at 42x in my 30mm eyepiece.  Stars all over the place and in some neat patterns.  It was amazing.  There was a pattern I wanted to see in the "eyepiece lower" section of the cluster and the view through the 30mm & Barlow may have been even more impressive.  Honestly it was even pretty good zoomed in @ 156x through my 2" Russell Optics eyepiece which I used to count stars in that "eyepiece lower" section I was staring at.  The Double Cluster was very rewarding and even neater in the eyepiece than on the PC.

Its not very far away so I went to view the Heart & Soul Nebulas.  I guess I saw the star structure of each.  It wasn't very impressive though.  No color, no whispy grey cloudiness, just a few stars.  Very different than what I Stellarium showed though my scope. 

It was getting late and I would have had to move the scope to get a line of site around a big white ash so I took the Barskas and hiked over where I could see the Pleiades and counted stars.  Easy to find naked eye objects!

While I was packing up I set the scope back to the Double Cluster after that and studied it more.  That one was impressive.

[SteveNickolls]

Hi, 

Thanks for your report. M31 looks impressive when you've imaged it otherwise a blob visually which I always feel doesn't do it justice. The Double Cluster in Perseus is magnificent, all those delicate patterns, tringles and horseshoes that the eye picks out. Then you find a few scattered red stars to add even more wonder and beauty to the scene. If you view the cluster through many nights you will find moments of extreem clarity when it's quite possible to 'stand and stare' for tens of minutes at a time. Good luck on more evenings. As for the Heart and Soul Nebulas I have captured them in wide angle sky shots but you would need a lot of imaging time to do them justice.

Cheers,
Steve

[Special K]

Nice report  

The Heart and Soul are tricky for me and can't say I've ever been successful. I had yet another look last week at a dark site but was only with the 80mm. There might have been a titch of something around the Soul but couldn't be sure. Big scope under dark skies are required, I think!

[rockystar]

the location of M32 surprised me too, when I eventually identified it - all the pictures make it appear to be "inside" of M31 but it was  right at the other end of the FOV. You might be able to make out M110 too as you've got more aperture than me - stick M31 at the top centre of your eyepiece and 110 will be bottom centre, it'll be faint in your skies, but I think you stand a chance.

[Astro Imp]

Thanks for your post, made an interesting read.

I view from an edge of village location with moderate light pollution and find the view of M31 varies enormously depending on the sky transparency. On a very good night it appears very bright with it's associated galaxies but when the transparency is poor it appears little more than a smudge.

I have to agree the double cluster is a very rewarding target, until recently I always viewed open clusters with a long focal length eyepiece giving about x25 but the other evening I tried using a shorter focal length to give about x40, the difference was significantly better, further experimentation is called for.

[BGazing]

mag 3.75 (i assume nelm) skies sounds...really bad.

watched andromeda and m32 and m101 under 20.06 sqm the other day and it was really nice. good transparency and it markedly had that 'not nebula' look to it.

[Davesellars]

Forget what Stellarium has as a picture of the view of whatever object.  Under 3.75 mag skies you'll be a bit limited and I'd suggest going for the brighter Messier objects for the moment like the globular and open clusters.  M32 as mentioned is quite a way from the core of M31 so the distance seems a lot more however under a much darker sky you can see M32 being enveloped in the outer dust lane of M31 (as you can probably see by the pretty (false) picture that Stellarium is showing.

The Heart & Soul need much darker skies than you have and a filter would be necessary to aid contrast even then.  Aperture on these larger emission objects is not important as much as dark and transparent skies.