A glimpse of M31

[SacRiker]

Due to the angles and trees in my back yard I hardly ever look for M31...it's just too difficult to get everything lined up. But for whatever reason I decided to go hunting with my trusty pair of bins tonight. At around 7pm (PST) I looked north and quickly found Cassiopeia. From there, I used Caph and Shedar to create an imaginary line straight up to Almach. Then I moved left and found Mirach and whatever the bright star south of Mirach is. After that it was a simple matter of slowly scanning with my bins until I finally found it -- the faintest of smudges that just had to be M31.

Now that I know how to find it, I'll be targeting it next time I can drag the scope outside and get set up properly. But for now, the bins served their purpose and helped me to star hop a create a path I'll remember for the future. 

[Charic]

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[Astro Imp]

Definitely the way to go, find it in the bins and then put the scope on it.
BTW I use M31 in the bins to judge how good/bad the sky is.
Good luck with the scope.

[Carbon Brush]

You have seen something that probably 99% of people in the developed world have never seen, and are unlikely to see.

Probably quite a lot of people in the undeveloped (whatever that means) world have seen M31.

Light pollution at its best.

Another vote for binoculars rather than scope views of M31.
Unless you have a wide field light bucket scope.

David.

[Eastman]

Nice report, next time with the scope you also can see it's satellites M32 and M110.