Help with finding a Galaxy

[prova]

Evening all

I've had some trouble locating the Sculpter Galaxy, I use Stellarium and located the general area of where it's meant to be but just can't find it.

With a mag of 7.1, is it something I should be able to see with relative ease and what can I expect to see once I've seen it?

I want to start with low mag Galaxies and work my up

Any help is appreciated ..

[koputai (Jason)]

You should be able to see it no worries. I can see it here in suburban Sydney, but it's not real bright. It takes a bit of concentration to find it in the standard 8x50 finder, but it's not that hard. It appears as a lighter diagonal sliver against the background.

Cheers,
Jason.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Prova, I have just gotten home from a night of visual observing with Eric, and we checked out Sculptor Galaxy at all sorts of EP focal lengths.

We started at 32mm (easy) then the 15mm (still easy) then threw in the 7mm Pentax. In the Pentax the Galaxy took up the whole FOV and was still nice and bright and show amazing detail.

Where Eric is staying for his holiday (about 10 mins from here) is slightly light polluted from Ballarats lights and yet we could still see great detail at 7mm.

Unless you have lots of light pollution you should be able to see it very easily in 30mm - 9mm EP's.

[prova]

thanks for the replies ..

so when im looking for it through my 9x50 finder will it still be more noticeable than normal stars?

and once I've found it - with my 8" and using a 25mm EP in will i be able to see any sort of typical 'spiral' effect?

[goober (Doug)]

Hi Prova, you shouldn't have any problems seeing it in Canberra. I can see it from the middle of Melbourne.

1. You have to start from Deneb Kaitos, a.k.a. Beta Ceti - it should be quite bright and easily naked eye.
2. When you have that star in your viewfinder, move the scope south a little bit until you see three stars in the shape of a triangle - quite bright, around magnitude 5.
3. From there, nudge it south a bit more and you'll see 4 stars in the shape of a lop-sided rectangle, not quite as bright as the triangle. If you can get here, you're very close to NGC 253.
4. In your viewfinder, look for a faint slash of misty light, about 1 degree away from the rectangle of stars. That's the galaxy.

It should look good in your scope. You'll see a faint triangle of magnitude 9 or 10 stars, with the galaxy splashed right through it. There is also a nice globular cluster nearby - NGC288 - some scopes can fit them both into the same eyepiece field of view.

Good luck - post your results!

[theodog (Jeff)]

As per below.
From Guide 7
Cheers

[prova]

cheers guys .. ill try give it a try as soon as i can and post my results ..