M31

[Pollux]

:DClear (COLD) skies...

Just the lil un out tonight! After M31...

...took an approximate 'measure' from Betelguese thro Aldebaran to the Pleiades, then doubled it which put me in the vicinity of 'Mirach' in Andromeda, followed 'uAnd' & 'vAnd' up and 'set' the scope, then swept the sky with a 25mm EP - sure enough there it was (just a faint smudge) tried the 2xBarlow + 10mm EP but the scope just wouldn't take it, in the end settled for a 6mm wide angle, not really much to shout about, but, i found it :hello2:WOOHOO!

By now the temperature had dropped to minus 4 and i really couldn't feel my fingertips (or several other bits) - will prepare for the weekend with the big un (and layers of clothing) that'll probably mean rain, cloud, snow AND fog . . . sorry!

...Mark

[pvaz]

Congratz!

You should stick with the 25mm for andromeda and just let your eyes adapt. M31 is faint but it's huge, like 4 times the area of the full moon.

A wide angle low mag EP will let you see dark sky and allow you to see the contrast on the edge of the galaxy, while high mags just zoom in the core and due to the lack of contrast it's not such a good sight.

I notice the more I let my eyes adapt the more it "grows" as I see more and more of the fainter areas away from the core.

[Doc]

I agree use your widest, lowest mag eyepiece and let your eyes bring out the detail. Look at it for a good 15 minutes trying to eek out those minor details.

But well done in finding it anyway.

[JamesK]

Well done for finding, I know its harder than it sounds! :-D

I would agree though, looking at it at 15x gave me a wide-field (binos) but details really revealed themselves after a while looking. Kind of like watching an old style photograph develop.