Andromeda looks like a cotton ball?

This past saturday I drove up to Vermont and set up a CGE14 to look at Mars, Mizar and Andromeda. During the day it was hot and muggy and at night it turned cold. Mizar looked like a snow man with little definition, streaks of light emmitting from the stars sorrounded by what looked like a puddle of water or oil and then again sorrounded by a halo of light around both stars. Atmospheric conditions must have been bad even though the sky looked clear. I then went to Andromeda and could barely make it out. It looked like a cotton ball. Will I ever see the spiral arms and stars within? Or is that only possible with CCD equipment and longer exposures.

Thanks

The problen with a long focal length instrument, ie, C-14, is that your lowest powers will still most likely give a fov of 3/4 degree or less. That basically IS the nucleus of M-31, and that's what it looks like in almost any instrument, a fuzz ball.
With a larger dob type scope with a fov approaching 2* you will see a dust lane or two. The absolute most stunning view of M-31 I ever had was from Mt. Pinos with a homemade 5" f/5 refractor and wide field erfle eyepiece. The actual fov was over 5* and the galaxy almost filled the field to the edge. There were at least 3 dust lanes and the HII regions were bright little knots strewn throught the spiral arms. Not quite a photo but real close!

Walt

Your description of Mizar is interesting...what magnification were you using? It's hard for me to imagine Mizar looking like your description!

AFAIK, the only stars in M31 that have been visually resolved by amateurs have been the blue supergiants in NGC 206. The brightest of these stars are in the 15th magnitude range.

Dave Mitsky