Trying to find Andromeda

Stellarium was issued on February's Sky at Night magazine CD. Pick up a copy at your local stockist. It's not bad at all for a freebie.

Right this is REALLY doing my nut, went out the other night to have a look and took my time to make doubley sure I'm in the right place but still no joy.

I expect to see something along the lines of M42 and which is a star with fuz but still haven't found anything, what size is Andromeda compared to M42?

After 20 minutes of searching I'm sure this is when andromeda should be, this is roughly what I saw throught the scope:



anyone recognise it?

Cheers, I'm not giving up on this

OK, the first question I'd ask is how much are you magnifying? Andromeda is BIG, much bigger than M42 so you should use the lowest magnification you've got for locating it. Once you've found it you can magnify more if you want but TBH I doubt you'll want to!

Hope that's some help.

Bart.

Ok was out with the scope earlier, I've a 6" / 750 mm focal length reflector and I'm using a 25mm lens.There seems to be fairly good seeing tonight so I was optimistic.

I went back again to where I thought Andromeda should be and had a look through the scope, as far as I can tell I was looking at it but omg was it faint. Looking directly at it I see nothing, it's only by darting my eye around lens that I can make out a very faint hint of a white blur, is that right?

There's no way I'd see any detail at all through the scope

Ok was out with the scope earlier, I've a 6" / 750 mm focal length reflector and I'm using a 25mm lens.There seems to be fairly good seeing tonight so I was optimistic.

I went back again to where I thought Andromeda should be and had a look through the scope, as far as I can tell I was looking at it but omg was it faint. Looking directly at it I see nothing, it's only by darting my eye around lens that I can make out a very faint hint of a white blur, is that right?

There's no way I'd see any detail at all through the scope

Through a 6" scope Andromeda is generally a huge disappointment. It's a great binocular target but in a 6" scope it's just a big featureless fuzz. Mind you, it should be a really obvious big featureless fuzz. Do you have some form of finder-scope on your telescope? One way to be sure it really is Andromeda you're seeing is if the finder shows what you're used ot seeing in binoculars.

Hope that's some help?

Bart.

Through a 6" scope Andromeda is generally a huge disappointment. It's a great binocular target but in a 6" scope it's just a big featureless fuzz. Mind you, it should be a really obvious big featureless fuzz. Do you have some form of finder-scope on your telescope? One way to be sure it really is Andromeda you're seeing is if the finder shows what you're used ot seeing in binoculars.

Hope that's some help?

Bart.

Isn't it a contradiction?!?! It does appear better in a smaller instrument! I always prefer to see it in the Skylux on an exceptionally clear night rather than a 6 or even 8 inch reflector. Funny...