Galaxy hunting

[prova]

I've been having some issues spotting galaxies.

With my current equipment, what should I expect to see when searching for a Mag 8.0 Galaxy?

In particular, I was looking for the Sombrero Galaxy the other evening and simply could not see it with my scope and what I thought was it was extremely faint and dim and not worth looking at.

I just want to manage my expectations with my current gear.

Thanks!

[§AB]

With 8" reflector you'll definately see its spindle shape and dust lane if your skies are reasonably dark. I think around 100-200x gets the best results. As a guide, my 10" shows the dust lane clearly from my outer-suburban backyard.

[Starkler]

Objects like galaxies and faint nebula really show the advantages of collecting photons over a long period with a camera. The detail you can get in a photo has no hope of being matched by the human eye. Having said that, there are objects such as open clusters and globulars where a camera cannot match the capture the dynamic range and aesthetic beauty of the eyeball view.

Yes those lovely rich and detailed galaxy pictures can raise expectations of what you might see visually. In real terms, almost all galaxies are faint grey smudges of light in the eyepiece, and the visual observing challenge is seeing any structure detail at all.

Light pollution kills galaxy viewing, and few people who have experienced dark sky viewing will even bother turning their scope toward a galaxy in the suburbs.

[prova]

Yeah I'm definitely past looking through magazines and then expecting to see that at the eyepiece, however as §AB said, I did expect to see a bit of spirality (if thats a word) and something that resembled more than a faint, dim, cloud-like object ..?

[goober]

It will look like a small, thin streak of light. You should do okay with it from Canberra, which has a bit of elevation and should be darker than Melbourne. I've seen it from my backyard in Melbourne - it wasn't stunning, but it was there.

[programmer]

Funny this should come up, I was out hunting the Sombrero last night. What a rubbish night! Although cloudless, the sky was bright from north (Melbourne skydome) to the south (presumably the Moon pre-rise) or other unfavourable atmospheric conditions. To the South, I could count the number of naked-eye stars on my fingers. No hope of seeing a mag 8 galaxy I'm guessing. And from Starkler's comments, I might not try again from my backyard :( And Prova, you won't be seeing any spiral structure on the Sombrero no matter what!

[prova]

Fair enough, so in that case would should I expect when looking at Andromeda?

[mark3d]

i hope the difference (other than considerable weight and size) between a 3" APO and 10" dob isn't just more smudges!

[Starkler]

Probably nothing. Its a large low surface brightness galaxy.
You want small bright ones like the Spindle or even ngc 5102 in centaurus which is easy to find being right near a bright star.

[Karlsson]

In Canberra it rises to about 13° altitude (November-December evenings) - the view will be far from stunning, but in 7x50 binoculars you should have no problem seeing it. From a darker site it is a naked eye object, even at your latitude.

In a 8" scope it may spill out of your FoV and you might miss it....:(