Spiral Galaxies

[Galen Gilmore]

How big of a telescope do I need to see spiral arms in galaxies, or atleast dust lanes in andromeda, considering I'm observing in an international dark sky park?

[Moonshane]

If you are in truly dark skies then I'd suggest you'll see spirals and dust lanes with any large binocular and any telescope if you are dark adapted. 

Bear in mind you'll see something more like this

than like this no matter what scope you use

[Galen Gilmore]

11 minutes ago, Moonshane said:

If you are in truly dark skies then I'd suggest you'll see spirals and dust lanes with any large binocular and any telescope if you are dark adapted. 

Bear in mind you'll see something more like this

than like this no matter what scope you use

Good enough for me, andromeda just looks like a blob in my back yard. 

[MarkyD]

This was taken with a 200P-DS and Canon 1D MkIII   (Whirlpool Galaxy)

[Knighty2112]

14 minutes ago, MarkyD said:

This was taken with a 200P-DS and Canon 1D MkIII   (Whirlpool Galaxy)

 Very nice image, but not a naked eye view though. 

[Galen Gilmore]

6 minutes ago, MarkyD said:

This was taken with a 200P-DS and Canon 1D MkIII   (Whirlpool Galaxy)

Yea, but I'm just wondering about visual. I know that you can easily pick up spiral arms in long exposure stacked images.

[John]

35 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

 Very nice image, but not a naked eye view though. 

I've seen it looking something like that with a 12" dob from a dark site. Not quite as bright but the structure was certainly there.

When I observed it with a 20" from the same site, the view was probably better than the image and the scale a lot larger !

If you are an experienced deep sky observer with finely honed skills and very dark skies I'd say that you can see quite a bit of structure with even a 4"-5" scope. If you are more like me, you might need 8", 10" or 12" to achieve the same under dark, transparent skies

 

[Galen Gilmore]

Wow! Just got back from a night of observing and was able to manually find 17 different galaxies. I found a dust lane in Andromeda, and spiral structure in both m81 and m51. I was also able to find the Leo triplet, m109 I think? The owl nebula. And several more that I can't even remeber!

[Stu]

56 minutes ago, Galen Gilmore said:

Wow! Just got back from a night of observing and was able to manually find 17 different galaxies. I found a dust lane in Andromeda, and spiral structure in both m81 and m51. I was also able to find the Leo triplet, m109 I think? The owl nebula. And several more that I can't even remeber!

Excellent! You must have had some decent dark skies which is what you need for galaxies!

Which scope were you using?

Two sets of triplets in Leo, M65/66/NGC3628 and then M95/96/105. Loads up there to find at this time of year!

[Galen Gilmore]

12 minutes ago, Stu said:

Excellent! You must have had some decent dark skies which is what you need for galaxies!

Which scope were you using?

Two sets of triplets in Leo, M65/66/NGC3628 and then M95/96/105. Loads up there to find at this time of year!

Yes, I was observing near Sedona, AZ. That also happens to be my birth place as well.

I was using a 114mm dobsonian from Orion. 

I saw both sets of Leo galaxies.

[Messier 104]

On ‎16‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 05:35, Galen Gilmore said:

Wow! Just got back from a night of observing and was able to manually find 17 different galaxies. I found a dust lane in Andromeda, and spiral structure in both m81 and m51. I was also able to find the Leo triplet, m109 I think? The owl nebula. And several more that I can't even remeber!

Wow seem like you have got a very dark site. Id love to see dust lanes in M31 but form how polluted the skies are around me I rarely get even a chance at it.

Good work sounds like a really good night you had there.

[Ags]

It's important to remember that a large scope will not make the galaxy any brighter, just bigger. The brightness is determined by the exit pupil you use, and larger aperture means you can have a larger exit pupil at higher magnifications, but regardless of this your eye pupil imposes a hard limit on how big the exit pupil can get. Then it gets down to the messy biology of how our vision works, where we can see large faint blocks easier than small faint blocks. From a small village near Merthyr Tydfill, while sheltering from a street light behind a wall, I could see dust lanes in Andromeda with 12x50 binoculars. It was the best view of a galaxy I've ever had.

[bomberbaz]

On 3/16/2017 at 06:55, Galen Gilmore said:

Yes, I was observing near Sedona, AZ. That also happens to be my birth place as well.

I was using a 114mm dobsonian from Orion. 

I saw both sets of Leo galaxies.

I think you will find there are many clusters of galaxies in Leo and Virgo that could be easily described as triplets. In Leo there are also NGC's 3605, 3607 & 3608 down to around mag 13 which I bagged the other week. True they are nothing like as spectacular as the more popular listed Leo triplet but they are a triplet. Have to say I was very please with myself in bagging them but the hardest one stated at mag 13 was barely visible, a mere haze against the darker background. 

Next time I am going to have a bash at NGC's 3681/64/86 which lie to the left of the aforementioned trio. All mag 11 ish and so should be doable.

Something worth noting is that experimenting with magnification can often help teasing out extra detail when viewing galaxies. This will darken the background and improve contrast. I was using my 12mm Nikon which gives me 100x and 1 degree tfov.

On the views of M51, I had a spectacular view of that through my 10" dob this time last year in the forest of bowland and it was nearly as good as the image posted by MarkyD. The seeing and conditions were excellent that night and it is these nights that we should be trying to make the extra effort to get out and make the most of.

I have long since learnt that the best way of getting the best out of this pastime is making the effort to get to a good gark site, there are no shortcuts.

Steve.