Saturday night live @Andromeda

[marsan]

The evening started off in a dramatic display of lightning,followed by thunderous showers and then amazingly, clear skies at midnight.

Here is my observing report for the night

Date : Saturday 27 June 2009

Time: 12:00 PM to 2.00 AM

Location :East London

Guide: Stellarium

Equipment: Celestron C102 Wide view

25 mm/10mm plossl

Primary Target : M31

I have been waiting quiet a while to get M31 at a favourable angle.

Found M31 looking up the line from Mirach(in Andromeda)

and Mirach by following the line from Almaak.

Another option is to find Cassiopeia ,this is a vV shape in the northern sky ,

then locate Shedir which is the bright star at the apex of the V in the vV,

look down the line @4 on the clock to find M31 ( a 'distinct' fuzzy patch).

Using the 25 mm eyepiece I could make out the fuzzy patch.

Nothing more.No fine details ,and no sign of M110/M32

I then changed to the 10 mm, i could see a faint highlight of the core but still fuzzy.

Is this normal for a 100mm refractor or am I missing something here?

Mirach is a bright yellow/reddish dot , i could get a fairly decent focus on it with little fringing, but I think the view will be better with better seeing.

Next I spent some time with my Bresser 10x50 taking in some quality wide field views of the northern sky.Cassiopeia is a wonderful sight in the binos.

Looks like a cloudy night today and i was hoping to get some observing in ...the scope is all set up and ready so the plan is to lookout for gaps in the cloud.

Thanks for reading .. any tips of getting a better view of Andromeda would be appreciated.

[Talitha]

Thanks for your report, well done!

"Fuzzy patch" sounds about right if you're viewing through London's light pollution.. galaxies and nebulae suffer a lot when there's any sort of lightwash, whether LP or the Moon.

[Doc]

Your desciption sounds spot on. If you want more head out to darker skies.

[John]

With my 102mm refractor from my moderately light polluted back garden M31 apprears as a brightish fuzzy core in a fainter fuzzy elipse. M32 is usually easily seen as a fuzzy star near M31 and, on a good night, I can see M110 in the same field of view but on the opposite side and a bit further away from the elipse of M31. I find that using averted vision helps with M110.

Personally I don't find the views of M32 that exciting - M81 and M82 in Ursa Major are much nicer galaxies to observe I feel.

John