Where is the great nebula in andromeda?

[MrsR]

I am outside right now and have located where it should be but not seeing anything that blows my mind - the orion nebula is blowing my mind and thought it would be something similiar! Am I doing something wrong?

[Doc]

It's not like M42, you are looking for a galaxy, a grey oval smudge.

[4lefts]

From my limited knowledge, it's quite low in the sky right now, and in the west, where the sun has set, so it won't be very bright. Dunno what the sky's like where you are, but maybe you could see a little fingerprint type elliptical smudge with a bright center. It's much better when it's higher in the sky.

[MrsR]

Thanks guys think maybe because it is too low.

[brantuk]

I had difficulty locationg M31 with my 10x50's tonight - I could see where it should be but too hard to find in the LP and atmospherics. But I was out looking for the undocked shuttle and ISS following behind - so seeing those for the first time made my day

[Ianladd]

I was also looking for the Andromeda galaxy and couldn't see anything.. I did manage to see a couple of the other Messier objects, but sadly with 10x50 Bino's from where I am they are just VERY faint smudges of light and I had to repeatedly check against stellarium and StarMap Pro to confirm what I was seeing..

Dont get me wrong, I was really pleased to have found them, but I get the feeling that aperture fever will hit me fairly soon

[Vega]

Yeah, it best to wait until the Autumn when its high in the sky again. Its way more worth looking at then but dont expect to be blown away like the Orion Neb. Galaxies are just smudges to the eye(peice). M31 is the wrong angle to us to be very impressive, its very difficult to see the dust lanes.

Matt

[MrsR]

The Pleiades made my night - found them looking for something else and took me a little time to know what it was I was looking at but thought they were beautiful.

I am finding it a little tough to find things as tons more stars appear when you look through the binos lol

[Ianladd]

Don't worry, you're not alone in finding it tough to star hop with bino's.. I find that sometime I look up and see just 2-3 stars and then through the bino's there's about 50!

I have been looking at star maps on stellarium or iphone, then looking back through the bino's.. then looking back at stellarium/iphone.. etc.

On the plus side we'll know the sky fairly well very quickly this way.. although sometimes it feels like being a taxi driver trying to learn the knowledge!

P.s. Pleiades does look awesome through bino's.. I could stare at it for hours!

[4lefts]

i just came back in. it's pretty dark for me outside (for an urban location) and i could just see m31 as a touch of slightly brighter orange against a dark orange sky if you know what i mean. i only looked at it for a few seconds then thought 'meh' and moved on to other things.

@mrsR - if you can get outside again now have a look at the beehive in cancer if you haven't already. that looks really nice at the moment.

i'm stil trying to track down m81/82 in my bins. i was looking exactly where i thought they should be, but nah, nothing. maybe i need somewhere darker.

[MrsR]

Ianladd we are totally on the same page with our binos lol Surprised I didn't get sea sick or something from bouncing from binos to stellarium to binos lol

4lefts just poped out back to see cancer but blocked from view and I cannot go out down the road sadly as have 2 children asleep and hubby is asleep too so noone to listen out for them now - hopefully it will reveal itself to me later.