help with finding galaxies

[spikeface]

hi all!

just a quick question... i recently got a 12" lightbridge, and the seeing has been fantastic... star clusters, planets, even some cool nebulae... but i cannot for the life of me find ANY galaxies... i know WHERE they are... if i can find CLUSTERS with the red dot finder and night sky atlas, then surely i should be finding SOME galaxies... so what's the deal? are they notoriously difficult to see? what mm eye piece should i be using? filters? surely my 12" is big enough to see them... somebody help! i really really want to see some galaxies! :shrug:

[Tandum]

Hey Spike,
The only one I can SEE from here regularly is M104 and I can only see it if it is off center of where I am looking. It is not very bright, more of a fuzzy blob, plus you have to deal with light pollution in the cities which kills it ... I have attached an image of what my camera sees though, this is the only way I know of to see it clearly, well almost clearly.

[AlexN]

hey, I had this trouble too when I got my scope. the biggest problem I had was I was looking for what I had seen in images...

Do not expect to see things as they are seen in images, the contrast is usually alot lower. In my 8", Tandum's image of M104 looks more like a pale yellowish smudge with a darker yellowish line in it... you're best off looking for the closer galaxies, or ones that can take as much magnification as you can throw at them... M83 is a good example of such. even at 180x mag I've had no troubles...

Keep studying your star charts, get a good feel for WHERE to look, then when you're out under the stars looking through the scope, remember that your eyes take time to adjust... give yourself time. and averted vision, look slightly to the side of your target, concentrating on the target itself.. you'll notice more detail this way...

You really have to train yourself to observe... and I'll quote a very wise mate of mine... Theres a big difference between looking and observing.

Hope this helps.

alex.

[jjjnettie]

It's very difficult to track down even the brighter galaxies using a red dot finder. Most are invisable to the naked eye.
You might need to invest in a 8x50 finderscope, that little bit of magnification helps a lot.

[gaa_ian]

Hi Spike
A Telrad might help you too !
The red finder circles can be lined up with guide stars and you can superimpose the finder circles on a Map in a star chart program such as Cartes Du Ceil.
Most Galaxies are invisible to the naked eye !
Also make sure you are using a low power eyepeice for your initial search
Say a 32 or 40mm widefield.
Hope this helps.

[WadeH]

Hi there Spike,

Your 12" lightbridge should give some great views, but dont expect photo like scenes. Galaxies appear as grey smudges in my 8" newt. with some hints of structure and dust lanes depending on the object of course.

Some good ones to start with would be:


The Leo Triplet, M65 M66 and NGC 3628. These three will all fit into the fov of my 25mm at 40X. And they are reasonably bright.
Centaurus A, Again bright for a galaxy and nice view with the 13mm Nagler. Dust lanes clearly visable.
M104 The Sombrero.
Of course when in season (spring) you cant go past the Andromeda galaxy M31.With the help of charts and star hopping I regularly and fairly easily find galaxies down to mag 10 and still getting dimmer. I start with the telrad and 25mm lens to zero in and work from there. I find that the 13mm at 76X and sometimes barlowed (2.5X) is best for me. And of course DARK SKIES.

Good luck but be warned, once you have found your first you will want to find another, and another, and....................... :screwy:

[spikeface]

thanks guys... it's good to know that i should at least be able to see some faint images of galaxies... i'll keep trying till i pull it off! thanks again...

[AlexN]

I dont know if anyone mentioned it, but another thing to consider is the seeing conditions/transparency. Seeing makes all the difference!!

[higginsdj]

Well you should be able to find and see the LMC and SMC - they're galaxies :)

Cheers

[AlexN]

given dark skies... I cant see either from here in brisbane.

[goober]

You have to get that truss in the car and out of Adelaide. I can see around six of the brighter galaxies with my 4" from Melbourne, on nights of good transparency. Out of Melbourne, the (ahem) skies the limit ...

[AlexN]

agreed - head away from the city for about an hour, set up in a park or camp grounds... with a 12" LB, you should have no problems at all..

I've seen a fair bit with my 8" from light polluted skies, but when I get out to a dark sky spot (i do this pretty much monthly at least) the sky really puts on a terrific show... :)

[erick]

And I can see the Milky Way, but not all of it in any one night! ;)


Yes, getting to dark skies helps enormously. In your suburban glow, with eyes not well dark-adapted, there are only a half dozen (apart from the Milky Way, LMC & SMC :P ) that you can catch a hint of, or perhaps something more than a smudge - especially with older eyes like mine :( . There are two approaches. Finally capture a hint of a galaxy in city light, then be blown away when you se them under good conditions. Or, forget about it until you see them in good conditions and know how to find them and what they look like, then come back to the 'burbs and be blown away by the fact that you can catch a hint of them under those terrible conditions!

[ngcles]

Hi Spikeface,

Please rest assured, your 12 'scope is more than capable of showing galaxies. From a true dark site, several thousand would be visible, if you have the patience to find them! Even from a reasonable suburban site, more than 1000 will be visible _to some extent_ in a 12" (I've seen over 1,200 galaxies from suburbia in a 10")

As others have commented, I think you would do well to add a finderscope to your red-dot finder. A nice straight-through 9x50 will set you back less than $100 and will show stars much fainter than the naked-eye view with the red-dot finder, allowing you to point the 'scope much more precisely. I know some people love telrad-type finders, but once you learn to use one, a traditional finder offers many advantages. Some galaxies will be faintly visible in the finder alone -- once you know what to look for)

But, I suspect the major problem you are probably facing is your "preconceptions" about what to look for when observing a galaxy. The overwhelming majority of new telescope users wrongly assume that a galaxy will look like the HST photograph on the box. Wrong!

You are looking for something that is very faint -- a weak cloudy patch with a bit of a brightening to centre. When you think of the distance even the closer ones are at, it is a wonder we can see them at all.

Try and forget about what a galaxy looks like from the glossy colour pics. But, once you've finally tracked down the first few, it will become much, much easier because you will know what to look for.

Do a bit of a net search for pencil sketches of galaxies and it will give you a much more realistic idea of what to look for. After a while, when you've got some experience under you belt you will surprise yourself at what you can see and you will even start to see some detail hinting at spiral structure in some of the brighter ones. As your experience level grows, you will come to adore them all !

Best,

Les D
Contributing Editor
AS&T

[GrahamL]

Hi

Try useing your red dot finder to put the star marked L in your low power
eyepiece (26mm or so) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurus
Theres a galaxy just on the edge of your field of view you might pick up If your suburban skies are dark enough .. In the same area see m 83 marked there ..If you can grab this pattern of stars in centaurus ..try to project a triangle with m 83 as its apex .. the base is pretty obvious .. and bump your scope a little east .. you should see this one fairly easy .

[spikeface]

delicious information from you all!

i'm actually quite lucky... i'm way up in the adelaide hills, so the skies are actually quite dark... much, much darker than general suburbia...

anyways... it's looks like i need to make a trip further out to really have some major fun, but in the meantime... perhaps tonight... i'll keep an eye out for some faint smudges! hooray!

[erick]

OK, go for M104 - you can do it!

Here is how I find it:-

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=21935

[Kevnool]

Try some software starrynight has a good range, or a set of star charts or even a planisphere, then learn to star hop from them, then we will hear some great observational reports from ya

[Paddy]

And remember as Alex N pointed out to use averted vision - it makes a huge difference to the amount you can see with faint objects.