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M51 - As a kid with my 4 1/4" reflector I happily nailed this one repeatedly and returning to it often. You wont see the spiral pattern but you WILL see its companion galaxy "attached" via the glowing haze of the primary.

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M51 - As a kid with my 4 1/4" reflector I happily nailed this one repeatedly and returning to it often. You wont see the spiral pattern but you WILL see its companion galaxy "attached" via the glowing haze of the primary.

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hmmm i could clearly see the two main spirals even with a 3.2" refractor.

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As a "kid" (well, a young teen ager), I could see both galaxies, but could never really see the spiral form of M51 itself. Oh, it (NGC 5194) shows kind of a mottled ring effect in 3 and 4 inch apertures, showing that it could indeed be classed as a spiral galaxy based on that feature. However, to see the true spiral form with arms well, I had to get to around eight inches of aperture, and even then, detail in the arms had to wait until I got my 10 inch. Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info
Prairie Astronomy Club
http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org

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I've often wondered if it's really a spiral we're seeing with our instruments.
It took Lord Rosse 72 inches to see a spiral in m51.
Even accounting for all the changes in technology, from both mirrors to eyepieces, I'm not at all convinced that it's enough to make a 12 inch telescope see a spiral, much less a 4 inch.
I believe that we see enough from it, that knowing what it is we're looking at, we can mentally reconstruct a spiral. But past that, it gets iffy.

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Lord Rosse's big scope allowed him to note the spiral structure, but he was mainly one of the first to see the spiral arms because he was one of the first to observe the galaxy in any thing but a small refractor (and one of the first to describe it in detail). William Herschel described it as "Bright, a very uncommon object, nebulosity in the center with a nucleus surrounded by detached nebulosity in the form of a circle, of unequal brightness in three or four places, forming altogether a most curious object.", which is close to what we might see in a 4 inch refractor. In a later observation, he writes, "very bright, large, surrounded with a beautiful glory of milky nebulosity with here and there small interruptions that seem to through the glory at a distance", which probably indicated he was starting to see some of the structure. The spiral structure in M51 starts to come out in a six inch aperture, but only just barely. An 8 inch makes it somewhat easier, while a 10 inch with averted vision allows most people to begin to see some detail in the arms themselves (under a fairly dark sky, that is). In a 12 inch under a dark sky, the object is rather detailed, although the arm structure still isn't exactly bright. Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info
Prairie Astronomy Club
http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org

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I've often wondered if it's really a spiral we're seeing with our instruments.
It took Lord Rosse 72 inches to see a spiral in m51.
Even accounting for all the changes in technology, from both mirrors to eyepieces, I'm not at all convinced that it's enough to make a 12 inch telescope see a spiral, much less a 4 inch.
I believe that we see enough from it, that knowing what it is we're looking at, we can mentally reconstruct a spiral. But past that, it gets iffy.

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I've often wondered if it's really a spiral we're seeing with our instruments.
It took Lord Rosse 72 inches to see a spiral in m51.
Even accounting for all the changes in technology, from both mirrors to eyepieces, I'm not at all convinced that it's enough to make a 12 inch telescope see a spiral, much less a 4 inch.
I believe that we see enough from it, that knowing what it is we're looking at, we can mentally reconstruct a spiral. But past that, it gets iffy.

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At the black skies of the Nebraska Star Party, I "believe" I was able to see some of the spiral structure to M51 with a 8 inch Newt. It wasn't something obvious staring you in the face, but if you looked long enough you could just begin to make it out. That said, and considering the darkness of the skies I was observing from, I would have doubts about people seeing that in 3 inch telescopes, but I guess anything is possible. Just like all the claims of seeing M31 naked eye easily. While I was in Nebraska, I figured out a few times where M31 was by seeing a slight fuzzy patch in the sky. It was far from obvious to me, and considering the closeness between M31 and the belt of the milky way, for me it was hard to separate them easily. I think the difference is one of a couple of things, vastly better eyesight, or vastly better imagination..

Ken

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I believe you did see some of the spiral structure, although perhaps not as much as you might have seen had you had a little more time to study it at leisure. One thing about M51 is it has a sort of 'sweet spot' power range that really brings up the arm structure. In my 10 inch, I see the arms a lot better at between 118x and 220x, although to see things like the fainter tidal tails off of NGC 5195 and the bridge between the two galaxies often requires a little lower power. This year at NSP, I slewed to M51 only once in my 9.25 inch SCT and went, "Ho hum,... another nice view of M51 with the spiral arms". I then went on to other more challenging things (well, when you are under magnitude 7.6 skies, there is certainly a *lot* one wants to check out other than the old favorites). The arm structure certainly wasn't exactly as "in your face", as it was in some of the giants that were on Dob Row, but I could see it with averted vision fairly well. It always satisfies my desire for a spiral galaxy and it gets so many looks during the springtime when it is high overhead that I usually just give it a quick look at NSP and then move on to all the stuff that is just screaming "LOOK AT ME!!" high in the southern Milky Way. Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info
Prairie Astronomy Club
http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org

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Quote:

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I've often wondered if it's really a spiral we're seeing with our instruments.
It took Lord Rosse 72 inches to see a spiral in m51.
Even accounting for all the changes in technology, from both mirrors to eyepieces, I'm not at all convinced that it's enough to make a 12 inch telescope see a spiral, much less a 4 inch.
I believe that we see enough from it, that knowing what it is we're looking at, we can mentally reconstruct a spiral. But past that, it gets iffy.

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