Mayall 11 or G1

[Doc]

Mayall 11 or G1

Mayall 11 or G1 is a globular cluster orbiting the Andromeda galaxy M31, it is located 130,000 light years from the core of M31 and is the brightest globular cluster in our local group of galaxies. It only shines at mag 13.7 as it is so far away, and is considered to be twice the size of Omega Centurai.

I spent 90 minutes trying to star hop from m32 via 32 And and onto SAO 53986 and then by orientating the laptop view to match the view through my 28 or 16mm Uwan eyepieces, I attempted starhop to asterisms along the way. It was hard going to star hop from star to star, as these stars were only around mag 12 so very difficult.

I mucked this up so many times but after the sixth attempt I finally managed to get to the correct field of view. As a pointer there are a curved asterism of stars that point the way, the brightest only being Mag 11.8 and the dimmest mag 13.8 so you really have to look and dark adapt yourself, I had the black out blanket over myself, the focuser and the laptop.

Even though in the right position I could not make out the split in the triangle of stars in which G1 forms one of the points, the other stars being GSC 2788:2185 and GSC 2788:2177. By inserting the 7mm Uwan the seeing became alot worse but after prolonged observing with averted vision I did manage a very delicate split but it was tangeable and only occured during moments of good seeing.

I then decided to sketch the object but in doing so I lost the position and had to start again, only took me another 20 minutes to relocate the object. I've combined the view from both the 7mm and 16mm eyepieces so in theory a little artistic license was given.

[acey]

Well done! Your perseverance paid off, and a great sketch. I've never tried G1 - only glob I've tried in M31 is G76, which is probably a lot easier to find, though looks stellar. I hadn't realised there were any M31 globs that could be seen as non-stellar, so must have a go at this one. There's a good illustration in Luginbuhl and Skiff that marks the globs - I think it includes G1 though I don't have the book before me to check. Unfortunately it's not plotted in the Atlas of the Andromeda Galaxy which is nevertheless useful for finding items within the galaxy itself.

[Doc]

Thanks.

It is the hardest object I have ever tried to find. At x114 it was almost invisible, only by going up to x261 could I get a very tangeable split that signified I was looking at the correct object, even then it looked stellar in appearence and only gave up it's true appearence a few times.

I will try G76 but at mag 14.3 it's dimmer then G1 which is mag 13.7. But I suppose G1 had the combined illuminence of the two other stars in the triangle as well as they were very tight indeed.

Take a look here near bottom of the page. There is a finder chart as well.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a3jhamZwlSkJ:www.cloudynights.com/item.php%3Fitem_id%3D383+observation+report+G1+andromeda+galaxy&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

[Talitha]

Well done! It's easy to see why this was so difficult to locate. I'd like to try it too, if the clouds ever go away.

[SAB]

Excellent! YOur perseverance has really paid off. Nice sketch aswelll!