Tales from Santa Luce, Tuscany, Episode IX: Of Virgo's Tail and Boys with Binoculars

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

August 9 started bright and clear, and pleasantly dry after the humid night described in the last episode. I decided to have a look at the eastern region of Virgo, which I have not looked at that much before.

Seeing was quite dreadful, and Saturn rippled in the 31T5, and the 17T4 was hard to focus at times.

I lined up the 14x70 finder scope with the C8 on Spica, and tried NGC 5334, but no luck. Higher up NGC 5363 and NGC 5364 showed up as a very nice pair in the same FOV. The former was very easy indeed, quite condensed, and held up well in direct vision. The latter was more diffuse, and clearly better in averted vision. Nearby NGC 5300 was very hard, and only seen in averted vision.

Some cloud started drifting in at this point, but it was still mostly clear, so I steered for a very large clear area near Zubenelgenubi in Lirba. NGC 5728 was quite hard, but after several attempts a vague fuzzy patch could be seen to move with the stars as you nudged the scope.

Further north, NGC 5812 was comparatively easy: a compact circular hazy patch showed at the end of a curved chain of stars "anchored" at delta Librae. NGC 5729 showed some tantalizing hints, but nothing definite.

Moving to another clear patch, I tried NGC 5248 in Bootes, but either a post or clouds got in the way. This is one I had seen before.

I quit as more clouds appeared.

August 10 saw a quick binocular session with the kids. We got M5, M3, M71, and M27 quite easily, so their Messier count went up by 4. We spotted several meteors too. The youngest found those (and the geckos on the wall) far more interesting than the fuzzy blobs. The eldest was terribly pleased his Messier count reached 30.

Later I spotted M31, M33 and NGC 7000 as well.

Next Episode: So you think you have seen all Messiers?