Viewing galaxies

[Burns84]

Hi so I bought a messier 6" dobsonian i know everyone says start at 8" but it came down to money at the time anyway. What i need help with is trying to find galaxies ie ive been looking for andromeda i know where it is just down from the triangle of cassiopiea. So when looking through the telescope im struggling to find it first the finder scope which is the standard on is difficult to use plus i wear glasses doesnt seem to be easy so i point the scope in the general area. Know ive seen images off what you will see through different scopes and eyepiece apparently i should be seeing a slightly zoomed in galaxy so maybe not the edges slight haze and the core basically not the whole object a bit zoomed in. Im using a 6" dobsonian with the standard 25mm eyepiece. When ive pointed it at Jupiter and saturn i used my barlow lense x3 it was amazing and i did culminate the scope. Basically im struggling with locating and seeing galaxies. Just to say i have seen the orion nebula it was great just annoyed im looking up and seeing loads of stars and not knowing if its the galaxy. Any help sorry for waffling a bit.

[Muc]

When you say you know its position are you  just pointing the scope In one go at where you think it is or are you star hopping with a map?

[callisto]

There's nothing wrong with a 6" Dob to start with 👍

You'll be able to see quite a few objects with this and its really portable....as for seeing Andromeda, you will just see the centre of the galaxy with a hint of some edges. (see image below)

 

 

 

I personally use a Telrad on my 10" Dob for locating objects and its really easy to use

Enjoy getting to know the sky with yours and you'll soon become used to finding objects fairly easy 

 

Mark

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by callisto
change wording

[Pitch Black Skies]

I think you might struggle with locating and seeing galaxies if you're aperture 6" regardless.

However, important points to consider are;

1. View when the moon is below the horizon from an area with minimal light pollution.

2. A telrad or similar makes finding things a breeze.

3. Wait until you're eyes have adapted to the dark.

4. Use Stellarium or similar.

[alacant]

Hi

Try a 32mm eyepiece. No need to pay a fortune. This one is fine.

Cheers

** I should add that I've never seen detail in any galaxy by looking through -albeit relatively small up to 30cm or so- telescopes. It was one of the reasons I started to photograph them instead.

Edited August 5, 2021 by alacant

[Knighty2112]

Don’t use your barlow to try to view M31, that will make it to large and too dim to see anything. You need a wide EP 20 to 30mm to see it. Your stock 25mm EP should pick it up OK in your 6” scope. Sky conditions can hinder seeing it well too, but as the skies gradually get darker again now you should be able to see it Ok later on in the night after midnight best. 

[doublevodka]

Honestly, andromeda is a bit of a fuzzy blob to look at but keep at it you will find it

 

M81 and M82 are nice ones to target too, especially if you can get them in the same field of view, certainly had more wow factor for me anyway 👍

 

Also, nothing wrong with a 6 inch dob, Ed Ting is a big fan and he's owned and tested more scopes that most people will see in a lifetime 😉

 

[Oldfort]

M31 is fairly easy to find.  My technique at this time of year, when Andromeda is rising in the east is to start from the square of Pegasus, head left into Andromeda.  When you come to the 3 stars heading up, M31 is just a bit further up and to the right of the topmost star.

The attached image might help.

 

 

M31.pdf

[NGC 1502]

With a 6” scope many galaxies can be seen as fuzzy patches even from town, but if you can get to darker skies that’s better.  Sky transparency is important, if it’s “clear” but hazy, or a bright moon is up that hinders greatly.

A Telrad or similar like a Rigel Quickfinder is great, or a standard red dot finder. As mentioned use low power to find your target because that shows a larger area of sky.

It’s possible that one of the reasons you don’t see dim fuzzy objects could be because you don’t have it in focus. Before trying to spot the galaxy focus on stars first. It’s difficult to focus on a dim fuzzy patch.

Finally not many of us have ever exhausted the possibilities of a 6” scope so please don’t think you must upgrade to enjoy great astronomy. Perhaps at some point you might upgrade but there’s definitely no rush!

Keep trying and soon you’ll be spotting loads👍

Ed.

 

 

 

 

[Burns84]

Thanks all ive herd about trying a wide angle eyepiece lots of good advice. I prefer star gazing in the winter just because you dont need to stay up until the late late hours. I dont mind this in the summer occasionally just my job starting early stops this but come winter you can star gaze from 6pm great stuff you just need a thick coat.

 

[Sigma]

I would echo the advice by Oldfort, you can find it with your current equipment you just need to know how to find it.

I am very new the observing and I can find Andromeda without much issue by starting at Mirach and moving up following the 2 bright stars, Andromeda is directly beside the last bright star. That is a terrible description so here is a picture.

Locating Mirach with the naked eye shouldn't be too hard as it is bright, if you can spot Cassiopeia then look to the right and down towards the horizon. Or as Oldfort suggested you can use the square of Pegasus as a starting point.

If you are still struggling you could try going out into darker skies, you don't need perfectly dark skies, driving 5 minutes out of the town into the countryside will make a huge difference. I am able to spot Andromeda with my 10x50 binoculars so I am confident you will find it with a nice 6" scope.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Sigma

[Capt Slog]

I use a 150mm / 6" Skywatcher, and I'm managing to find a lot of the 'fuzzies', so just stick with it.  As Pitch Black Skies mentions above, Stellarium really helps.  Knowing exactly where the blob is supposed to be can often help distinguish it.

 

Andromeda is a strange one for me.   Last year, I recall explaining to my grown-up son that there was this huge galaxy which you could see if you knew where to look (I'd just bought my scope and I was quite exited about some stuff that was very new to me).  We were in the garden and I explained whereabouts it was.  "Ah yes, I can see it" he says.  And sure enough, there it was, not easy but certainly something there.  Later that night and through the scope it was very visible.

When I looked for it recently, I couldn't see it at all, but M32 and M110 stuck out like sore thumbs!  I recall thinking before that M32 at least, would be impossible "with all that glare".  Okay, I've learned a lot since then and maybe have a few more EPs now (the 32mm for instance), but it surprises me how things change in the sky and how dependent upon conditions my observations are.

[Knighty2112]

As Sigma has posted also, if you go up from Beta Andromeda (Mirach), up to Mu Andromeda then go about the same distance up again in a straight line and you should hit M31.

 

[John]

Most galaxies are faint and vague objects even with larger aperture scopes.

A handful are brighter patches of light.

The fascination is their distance and scale, not really in their actual appearance in the eyepiece.

Under my Bortle 5 skies, I've observed hundreds of galaxies with my 12 inch scope and many even with my 4 inch scopes but most of them you would hardly even notice were there in all honesty.

So, in a sense "struggling" with galaxies is what it is about. They are, mostly, a struggle to see

Under a really dark sky, they do get noticeably easier to see though.

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by John

[Pixies]

@Burns84 - can you get hold of a pair of binoculars? They won't have to be a super-duper astronomical set. They are an excellent way of practicing a star-hop before struggling with a straight finder and the reversed image. They are also  a good way of observing something large like Andromeda. I can find this galaxy in summer's light skies with a cheap pair of 10x50s. Once the skies are dark, a smaller pair of bins will be fine.

The Bresser dobs are great scopes but the basic finder that comes with it are rubbish. It's the single drawback of this manufacturer. There are plenty of posts in SGL about replacing the finder bracket with a Baader Universal one, so that you can use a better finder. I'm not suggesting you rush into further upgrades, but there will come a point when your star-hopping is limited by that finder. A lot of us recommend a red-dot/Telrad and RACI finder combination. 

And finally, the book "Turn Left at Orion" is an excellent guide to star-hopping and what you can see with different types of scopes.

[Tiny Clanger]

3 hours ago, Burns84 said:

Hi so I bought a messier 6" dobsonian i know everyone says start at 8" but it came down to money at the time anyway. What i need help with is trying to find galaxies ie ive been looking for andromeda i know where it is just down from the triangle of cassiopiea. So when looking through the telescope im struggling to find it first the finder scope which is the standard on is difficult to use plus i wear glasses doesnt seem to be easy so i point the scope in the general area. Know ive seen images off what you will see through different scopes and eyepiece apparently i should be seeing a slightly zoomed in galaxy so maybe not the edges slight haze and the core basically not the whole object a bit zoomed in. Im using a 6" dobsonian with the standard 25mm eyepiece. When ive pointed it at Jupiter and saturn i used my barlow lense x3 it was amazing and i did culminate the scope. Basically im struggling with locating and seeing galaxies. Just to say i have seen the orion nebula it was great just annoyed im looking up and seeing loads of stars and not knowing if its the galaxy. Any help sorry for waffling a bit.

I've seen quite a few faint fuzzies in my 150 (6") heritage dob from my light polluted suburban back garden , so do not give up ! I'm reposting a long reply I made to a previous thread , with a few tweaks to better answer your question:

 I'm in a suburban area, with a 150 dob , and am keen on seeing the faint fuzzies , but have learned that quite apart from any limitations of my skill and kit, there are many factors out of my control which affect my chances. of seeing a faint fuzzy

A  dark night . Not many of those right now, the best, darkest time in summer is an hour or so each side of 1am ( it would be midnight except for BST) Round here every other street light is turned off at midnight to save electricity, and by then the neighbours have stopped illuminating their conservatories like lighthouses too., so I aim to observe in the early hours.

No Moon in the sky. If the Moon is up, it or any bright planets are what I observe, not faint challenging DSOs  I also ensure any of my house lights which illuminate the garden even slightly, are off. A towel or similar, draped over head & eyepiece can help in a light polluted area.

A target fairly high in the sky. The lower you look, the more thickness of atmosphere you are peering through.

Fully light adapted eyes. I'll spend some time faffing with the 'scope, looking at the sky with the naked eye,  or observing  easy targets for half an hour, it takes at least that long for my eyes to properly adapt.

Averted vision: looking to the side of the target really works.

For finding faint stuff I usually use a 32mm  or an 18mm eyepiece initially, only swapping to something with higher mag if and when I get to see my target. 18mm is the 'sweet spot' for my setup, local conditions and eyesight, apparently. It gives me the greatest contrast between sky and fuzzy thing.   Our eyes are better at spotting and recognising edges of shapes than gentle gradients of brightness, so you want to have as contrasty an image as possible to distinguish faint fuzzies from a fairly bright sky. There's plenty of info to read on here about exit pupil, which is an important factor in this.

Final thought : M31, Andromeda, sounds as if it ought to be an easy  target ,  right ? I thought so, I  mean, it's huge ! So I thought when I got my dob in the early summer last year. I spent a few frustrating evenings not seeing it , despite being bloomin' sure I was pointing the 'scope straight at it .Then one warm summer night I went out with a camping mat, pillow and binoculars to just lie on the grass and watch for a meteor shower , the Perseids in August. About an hour after settling down I saw something out of the corner of my eye , a vague grey fuzz in the sky ... no ! It can't be ... but , it's in the right area ... Yep, after several evenings of annoyingly fruitless effort trying to see M31, I'd seen it entirely by accident with the naked eye.

Got it in the binoculars , then went in and fetched the dob (without turning any light on indoors so as to preserve my night vision) and managed to see a very underwhelming slightly brighter, thin cotton-wool ball, the bright centre of Andromeda. It looked better in the binos. to be honest. After that, I could see Andromeda with the naked eye on subsequent nights, no problem,  my brain knew what to expect.

It's one of the fascinating things about astro observing, quite apart from all the kit and technology, the correct aiming etc, you actually have to teach your eyes and mind what to look for.  It's frustrating to start with, but stick with it, persistence pays off eventually.

I'd suggest you have a shot at M81 & M82, Bode's  Galaxy and the Cigar  Galaxy, small , but high in the sky and easy to navigate to from the Plough, not to mention 2 for the price of 1 🙂

Heather

 

[Tiny Clanger]

And it's worth checking this thread out if you've not already done so;

 

[AstroMuni]

4 hours ago, Burns84 said:

Just to say i have seen the orion nebula it was great just annoyed im looking up and seeing loads of stars and not knowing if its the galaxy.

I agree it can be confusing. But galaxies (and globular clusters) show up as fuzzy objects so cant be missed. Its indeed tricky to get one into your field of view. As others have mentioned your finder needs to be a decent one and needs to be aligned to your scope. But I am guessing you have done that if you managed to see Jupiter.

I would suggest using an app on your phone to help you guide the scope to right position. Several apps are available depending on if you use Android or Apple. I use Android and prefer Skeye. You can attach the phone to your scope and Skeye will help guide you towards the object you are looking for - PUSH TO functionality is what its called. There are other apps like Stellarium too.

Edited August 5, 2021 by AstroMuni

[Starslayer]

3 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

Try a 32mm eyepiece. No need to pay a fortune. This one is fine.

 

** I should add that I've never seen detail in any galaxy by looking through -albeit relatively small up to 30cm or so- telescopes. It was one of the reasons I started to photograph them instead.

Is that the same as the FLO one at £69.00   ?   https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-eyepieces/celestron-omni-plossl-eyepiece.html

[Burns84]

Hi in reply yeah i use stellarium and have aligned the finderscope i tell you one thing i didnt mention as its a dobsonian i have difficulty finding things because of the way they work i.e upside-down and knowing what way to move the scope because its all backwards. For example say you see on paper or app that a star or galaxy is say to the left of the point your on i guess this means you move right and up is down. I know i said ive seen Jupiter and saturn they were quite easy its more the star hopping with the dob and yes i think ill purchase a red dop finder.

 

[alacant]

7 hours ago, Starslayer said:

Is that the same

Looks identical to me.

 

[Starslayer]

7 minutes ago, alacant said:

Looks identical to me.

 

……. And me.. £20 to Uk incl vat and delivery seems worth a punt. 

[John]

1 hour ago, Burns84 said:

Hi in reply yeah i use stellarium and have aligned the finderscope i tell you one thing i didnt mention as its a dobsonian i have difficulty finding things because of the way they work i.e upside-down and knowing what way to move the scope because its all backwards. For example say you see on paper or app that a star or galaxy is say to the left of the point your on i guess this means you move right and up is down. I know i said ive seen Jupiter and saturn they were quite easy its more the star hopping with the dob and yes i think ill purchase a red dop finder.

 

You can flip the view in Stellarium to match the view through the dobsonian eyepiece or your finderscope. You can flip the horizontal and vertical orientation using ctrl-shift-H and ctrl-shift-V.

I use a red dot / illuminated reticule finder and a right-angle corrected image optical finder on my dob which both give the view as our eyes see it, until I look through the eyepiece of the scope, then it flips both vertically and horizontally. 

It does take a bit of getting used to !

 

[Pitch Black Skies]

12 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

Try a 32mm eyepiece. No need to pay a fortune. This one is fine.

Cheers

** I should add that I've never seen detail in any galaxy by looking through -albeit relatively small up to 30cm or so- telescopes. It was one of the reasons I started to photograph them instead.

When you say 30cm, are you talking about the focal length or a 12" reflector?

I'm interested because I have an 8" reflector and considered upgrading to a 12" for a bit more wow factor.

I too have started using a camera. Not for DSO's yet though, just planets and the moon. I need a tracking tripod and mount I think, still not clear on how to go about it.

It's amazing what the camera can pick up. Even just the abundance of stars and their colours is amazing.

[alacant]

9 minutes ago, Pitch Black Skies said:

a 12" reflector

^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^

13 minutes ago, Pitch Black Skies said: