[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

Thanks, Les and Ron, for the encouraging comments.

That detection of the dust lane in IC 2531 with the 50cm telescope was a good observation, Les.
According to Freeman and colleagues (see below), it is only about 10 arcseconds wide.

Here is an image of IC 2531 from the DSS version made by Odd Trondal (his supernova reference images):



Most images show the bulge of IC 2531 looking either Very Boxy...... or very peanut-shaped.
This bulge is one of the prototypes of a small boxy bulge that is actually a bar structure seen edge-on.

The bulge of IC 2531 looks to be High Surface Brightness, so its "Boxy and Peanut" shape might well be obvious in visual observations. However, the problem for most observers using smaller apertures than Les used on this object (50cm) will be actually detecting the light from this small bulge with our eyes, as the total Blue magnitude of this galaxy is only 13, and the bulge will be significantly fainter than this.

Here is another image of IC 2531, this one from the PhD thesis of M. Kregel (2003)(University of Groningen)



This image is at low contrast, so it should be closer to what we might see with the eye+telescope.

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A detailed imaging study of this galaxy, by Prof. Kenneth C. Freeman of ANU (and some colleagues), can be found in this paper:
(1989), Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 337, p.163

Here is an image of IC 2531 from this paper:



They note that the dust plane of IC 2531 is seen precisely in an edge-on orientation (it exactly bisects the bulge).