in the last couple of months its either been cloudy, or ive been busy, like clockwork, any time i made plans for something at night, the clouds opened up to taunt me. But tonight i was able to get out there again at last, and finally found the galaxies id been trying to find the last few times id gone out.
At least i think i did, the Sombrero galaxy, was a kind of smudge that got brighter in the middle, which i could only see with averted vision, and the southern pinwheel galaxy was just kind of a smudge that got darker the further out, but it looked more like an out of focus star. The stars nearby matched those on starry night enthusiast, but it also said that with a telescope you should be able to make out the arms etc. What i saw more closely matched what it described as what id see through binoculars (my binoculars saw nothing there by the way) There was a fair bit of light polution in the area, would that make these galaxies as hard to make out as i had them? or do the people at starry night enthusiast have binoculars as big as my 200mm scope?
Could it be that my scope is only collimated without any form of collimation tool? I havnt got any collimation tool yet, but plan too, especially if it improves what you see by enough to make out more detail in galaxies.
Despite the fact that they were basically fuzzy blobs, it was still very exciting to see other galaxies.
Sounds like the Sombrero, in my 8 inch LX it's easily recognisable but better with averted vision. How well you see those particular targets will depend on how dark your site is; the darker the better, if you were near Melbourne then skyglow (and last night the moon) would be a problem.
Sheap, If the star patterns were as described in Starry Night then you were most probably right. In my 8" scope these galaxies are quite distinct but I am lucky to have dark skies here in the mountains. Light pollution really plays havoc with galaxies and nebulae so you can notch them up BUT make sure you take a trip to a dark sky site and have a look there and you will fall in love with your scope again
I relate totally to your question. I have reasonably dark skies ~ 30km away from Canberra and a 10" dob. I have never seen spiral arms on a galaxy, including M83, much to my disappointment. I have collimated a great deal, yet the fact remains; no spiral arms. This web site is an excelllent one, the best I've found, but I've also found that other people's experiences have raised my expectations above my experience. The darker site will certainly help you, but don't set the expectations too high.
Don't give up, it's stacks of fun, but not aways quite as WOW
From mag 7 skies spiral arms in M83 are easy in my Celestron/Vixen C6. Its all a matter of dark and transparent skies......you want nothing else for galaxy hunting and observing...
