Which spiral?

I'm a rank beginner, have only been out a few times. I have an older Celetron NexStar 8. I've been impressed by Saturn and months ago, I was impressed by the Orion Nebula.

I've been disappointed in spirals so far, but I've not seen all that many. Don't get me wrong, seeing M81 and M82 together did elict a wow, and I know I'm not going to see what the cameras see, but which spiral should I be aiming at to see some hint of arms?

I've seen arms in M51 but that was in a 14" or 16" dob.

Thanks!

Paul

Hi Paul, and welcome here! Galaxies are, by nature, notoriously hard to see detail in. This is especially true in smaller apertures, as you've discovered. Have you tried M-101, or M-33 yet? With the right skies,these two can be fun. While not presenting a spiral aspect, M-104 is visible right now, and a great sight! There are also a few NGC objects that show spiral structiure, but they escape me right now, and I'm not near my charts. Anybody else have those NGC's at their fingertips?
Larry

With an 8" scope you'd be hard pressed to see any spiral structure except for a few - and usually only with good seeing. From memory My logs show I've seen a hint of structure with 8" scopes (and as small as 6" and maybe 4") with the following:
m51
m33 (NGC area's)
m31 (dark lane)
M100
M101

I'm sure there are a few others and some "irregular" galaxy's structure as well....

Paul, I've seen spiral arms in M51 with my 8" Dob from my suburban home, visual magnitude about 4.5 or so. I was using a Meade 6.7mm 5000 series UWA for 179x. Once I got lucky and saw some spiral structure in M33 with my 102mm achromat, also from home. Andromeda is of course the easiest to see spiral arms. From a really dark site I've see the spirals with a 3.3" apo. In addition to spiral arms you might try for the large dark dust lanes in M64 the Blackeye and M104 the Sombrero. Seeing needs to be very steady and the air very clean to see these features well. Unsteady skies may not prevent you from seeing the galaxy, but they will make it a blur.

David E

Hi Paul!

I've seen sprial structure in M81 (the runder one) with an 8 inch dob from a dark sight. I tried higher power more or less by chance (about 130x) and it started to show with averted vision. Skies were pretty dark.

Paul Cezanne said:

I'm a rank beginner, have only been out a few times. I have an older Celetron NexStar 8. I've been impressed by Saturn and months ago, I was impressed by the Orion Nebula.

I've been disappointed in spirals so far, but I've not seen all that many. Don't get me wrong, seeing M81 and M82 together did elict a wow, and I know I'm not going to see what the cameras see, but which spiral should I be aiming at to see some hint of arms?

I've seen arms in M51 but that was in a 14" or 16" dob.

Thanks!

Paul

Thanks everyone. That's a great short list for me to try out.

Paul

They are tough to see........I have an 8" LX90 with dead-on gotos, so I know for sure they are inside the eyepiece! I have only been able to see a "hint" using averted vision.........from my "dark sky" HA! site in the driveway on a busy street! You need dark skies for those types of DSOs.

That is such a great question.

I have an 8 inch F6.25 Dobs that I was using with Cartes de Ceil in March (a warm up for the Messier Marathon) and I had one of those Wow moments galaxy hunting. I looked at M31, M81, M82, they were mostly gray blobs. I targeted a 12th mag galaxy in Virgo (I Think) and using averted vision I saw detail,lots of detail. This galaxy was about half the size of M31 and fainter. It wasn't really a spiral it was more irregular like a cigar but lanes and detail were visible. The core was not over powering like M31. I really wish I had been using an observing log that night because I have never been able to find it again. I don't know what it was but it was much better than any of the Messier galaxies I've seen.

I've been weathered out on every Messier Marathon attempt so far, but I do make an effort on good new moon evenings to galaxy hunt. I find it is alot like planetary observing. When conditions are just right you will see lots of detail but on most nights it's just an excuse for solitude and meditation.

Get a good cheap or free planaterium program and do a virtual search for galaxies in a magnitude range that your scope should be able to find. This will give you a list of good candidates and keep a log for future reference.

Good luck Dave

Paul,

Check out M104 at the southern edge of Virgo. Galaxies don't come much brighter than this one.

Here's a link to a page for the constellation Virgo with maps, photos, and descriptions of DSOs.

http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/vir/index.html#ngc4472

clear skies,
dan