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Spotting M31: The Journey, the story, the challenge.

Castor

By Castor
in Observing - Deep Sky

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Castor

Castor

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Actually, it was in September. September of 2008.

I had gotten my first telescope, a 60mm Bresser refractor (which I was very pleased with, and I still am, though I have upgraded to a greater 5" reflector - but that's a whole other story :)). Anyway, I'd seen a few things before M31, including the Pleiades, some planets and The Orion Nebula, which I, (accidentically) found by mistake, browsing an area of the sky, having absolutely no idea of what I was doing :mad:. I was reading one my astronomy related books, in which I saw a picture of M31 + some cool facts, M31 being the closest galaxy to our own. It's bright, it's big, it's beautiful, why not try and take a look at it? So I downloaded Stellarium, looked at some star charts (even though I never really figured them out :)), searched on forums, untill I finally decided to take the plunge and go down on the street with my telescope.

What would I be expecting? I don't know, to be honest. I heard that even in the biggest aperture telescopes, all galaxies should look like some sort of dim clouds. M31 should stand out pretty bad, as it's so big in the night sky. I found a pretty dark spot, set up my telescope, using the 25mm eyepiece to get a great view of the sky. I started searching for Shedir in Cassiopeia, because that would be the star pointing right down at M31. (This prooved difficult, as my red-dot finder never worked the way it's supposed to.) Browsing, browsing, the star just wouldn't show up. I found another bright star though, which I believed was in the middle of Shedir and M31. I browsed the area, but no galaxy was supposed to make it's slightest appearing that night.

Some nights after, I took down my telescope again. I popped in the 25mm eyepiece, found my "middle-star" and began to browse the telescope to the right, left, up, and - yeah, you see where this is going :headbang:. No galaxy. Only some faint stars, (which I first believed to be M31) and possibly the Pleiades. I went home, a little frustrated, a little satisfied, tired too - but my goal was still within reach, or so I kept telling myself. Was my 'scope big enough? Did I actually see it without noticing it, because it's so dim and diffuse?

I kept trying like this for some weeks, without M31 appearing. Though it was a pain in the *** looking for, I quickly found myself being able to recognize different constellations and stars, also, I found out what that shiny thing in the sky was. Venus. But, as said earlier, that's a totally different story, and maybe I'll come back to that later. :)

Everything taken into consideration, I learned and experienced more those weeks than I'd ever thought of, and it was a great kick-off to my astronomy hobby.

Finally, around the 28th September, I took down my telescope, found my "middle-star", and began to browse. After about half an hour, I still couldn't find anything. I was just about to go home, when some diffuse, cloud-looking thing popped into the eyepiece. WOW! I found it! I finally found the Andromeda Galaxy! I was pleased. I think I looked at it for half an hour probably. It was so beautiful! (Well, maybe not the actual sight, but you're looking at some massive star-collection-flying-thing in outer-space, ;), and it's light have been travelling for 2,2 million years to reach the Earth, just so little me could have a look! Now THAT's impressive.

I tried to switch eyepieces, but that didn't help, unfortunately. It just got more diffuse. That day (or should I say night?) was by far the best since I'd got the telescope. I actually saw it!

I'm sorry if it's been heavy reading, and I apologize for any spelling mistakes whatsoever, it's almost midnight, and.. Jupiter is soon to pop up from the neighbours house! (No worries, I have the telescope(s) ready ;).)

Thank you for reading.

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Talitha

Talitha

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Well done! As the saying goes, "never give up". :)

I know what you mean about bumping into something. Back in my newbie days i hadn't the faintest idea there was anything out there besides the Messiers, and i bumped into ngc253... thought i discovered a comet. :)

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acey

acey

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NGC 253 you say? I'll have a look :-).

Glad you liked it.

253 is always rather low in British skies (it's in Sculptor) so we can't really appreciate it as a rival to M31 - but definitely worth a look.

Congrats on M31, Castor, you nicely convey how it's about imagination as much as photons, just thinking how far that little bit of light has travelled. I first saw the galaxy with a 40mm scope when I was a boy and there was very little to see, but I was awestruck.

When the sky is dark enough for the Milky Way to be clearly visible then it's an easy naked eye object - the problem then is just finding it among all the distractions!

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Castor

Castor

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Well Acey, I live in Denmark, and NGC 253 won't be visible untill about 5 AM in the morning, so I guess I'll have to wait some time to see that : / But you are right indeed, it's all about imagination when viewing faint DSO's.

Actually Doc, M81 & M82 are my next targets. With Ursa Minor being pretty high in the sky as you say, they should be quite easy to find. I'm just waiting for clear skies ;-)

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Ant

Ant

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That was a fantastic read and must be very similar to the first few times out for most of us.

I am really chuffed that you found M31.

You want to try for M13 next - it's pretty close to overhead at the moment and is quite brights and compact. It'll be a nice sight in the eyepeice.

Ant

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Talitha

Talitha

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Here's hoping your sky is nice and clear.. let us know how you do with 81/82. :)

The best time to see ngc253 is at the end of October. It was discovered by Caroline Herschel, so it's definitely do-able from the UK... not too sure about Denmark, though.

Subtract your latitude from 90, and put a negative sign in front of the answer. That's the declination which sits on your horizon, and is the absolute lowest you can see. The declination of ngc253 is -25, so if your answer is a higher negative number (in other words, further down than ngc253), the galaxy ought to be do-able from your location. :)

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ZOG

ZOG

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I first saw M31 when I put the 130pm on a goto mount. It got a 2 minute glance and then it was off to the next target.

When I got the dob it was a different matter, followed the V down to the bright star, swept the scope around, yep there was the second star, a little further and the galaxy drifted into view. This time I gazed at it for at least half an hour.

I think the effort that went into locating it made it much more interesting.

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Castor

Castor

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Thanks for that, Ant :). Yeah, M13 is something I've wanted to try out for a while. Shouldn't be that hard to locate with Stellarium + an actual working red-dot finder. :headbang:

I shall enlighten you soon (hopefully) in my hunt for M81 & 82, Talitha. And it seems like my sky is gonna be completely cloud-free this evening! :)

And about NGC 253... I looked it on Stellarium, and it should definitely be visible in October, as you said - though close to the horizon. Can't wait to get a look at it! :)

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Casus belli

Casus belli

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I had great difficulties in finding M31 as well when I first started. Now its no problem at all. A lot depends on seeing conditions as well as the experiance of the observer. I found the learing curve to be a very gentle very rewarding experiance.

There is a whole universe of objects just waiting for you to find. M13 is a must. M57 (ring nebula) might be possible if you have good skies. There are loads of star clusters, double stars etc. Have fun and start dreaming of the upgrade. All astronomers do!

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bish

bish

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I had similar experiences with M57 and M27 too. I first tried to see them when the sky was too light and they were too low down. Once you know where they are it's much easier! I also find the thrill is in actually finding a DSO and knowing what it is as the view in a small scope from light polluted skies is generally small and fuzzy (other than M42)

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mike.brightmore

mike.brightmore

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I have always found it better to star hop to M31 from Pegasus. Find Alpheratz in the Great Square of Pegasus (in the North East corner of the square (which is more of a diamond at present). Move left two stars to Mirach (the next star along this line is the beautiful double Almach). At Mirach go up two stars towards Cassiopeia and M31 is up a little further and to the right. The galaxy is easily visible as a fuzzy patch in binoculars - always the best way to start out learning the night sky.

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