After The Rain

[webboid]

It was raining all day yesterday & forecast for clear around 10 pm. In anticipation of this long overdue Moonless observing night I prepared for a galaxy hunt around Triangulum & Aries.

My 12" dob was setup & newly installed secondary dew heater, running for the first time, hoping for or reasonably lengthy session without problems. I started in earnest around 11 pm. From my urban location I was very pleased that the sky looked very clean with more stars looking back at me than normal. The double cluster was just visible naked eye, unusual for me. 

I have been reading about Herschell's observations & so before I started my planned list my first target was NGC 1514. A bright star was first noted but with averted vision I was able to see a fairly extensive faint nebulosity. OII filter brought this nebulous haze into direct vision. A nice start so on with the plan.

Over to M33 but being in the sky glow was just an apparition. So too was M74 but undeterred I cracked on with the plan. I am fairly confident with my star hopping these days but all my targets alluded me except NGC 772. I began to think that the skyglow was the problem so changed  direction toward M81 & M82.

Now I had not prepared so I just looked at my S&T atlas & radiating from the two spectacular favourites I managed to find another 13 galaxies. With 124x magnification they all were quite faint. I then noted that I had circled a galaxy lower down in Ursa Major & duly hunted this target. It was NGC 3079 & was seen as a fairly large edge on galaxy & very nice too. I made a mental note to revisit this from a dark sky site.

Satisfied with my unplanned success in finding galaxies, but a little tired, I decided to go on to some easy stuff I can locate without the map. M36, 37 & 38 were seen with an abundance of stars, M37 being my favourite. A little further over was the spectacular M35, completely filling the FOV. Just nearby a faint misting of tiny stars was NGC 2158 which I seldom see from home.

I then had a look at M108 & M97, the double cluster & the Eskimo nebula, M1 too. Sadly the Orion Nebula was just below the roof & I would have to move my scope right up the garden. I declined so as to preserve my back. So I finished around 2 am with a pleasant but unsteady view of Jupiter.

A thoroughly enjoyable session with a good few new objects & old favourites. 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report. NGC 3079 has a special place in my heart as it was the first non-Messier NGC I bagged, all the way back in 1979 or 1980 with my homemade 6" F/8.

[webboid]

Thanks Nick

NGC 3079 seemed quite large I'm amazed I hadn't looked at it before.

[FenlandPaul]

Great report - thanks.

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[DeepSkyBagger]

Sounds like you had a successful night after the initial disappointments. That often seems to be the case. My observing logs over the years are full of slow starts followed by great sessions. I think it's down to dark adaptation. If you go hunting for faint galaxies straight off after coming out of the brightly lit house, you're not going to see them. 

By the time you moved up to M81 and 82, your eyes had dark-adapted enough to see fainter objects. This happens to me all the time. Also, galaxies like M33 and M74, although theoretically bright objects, have low surface brightnesses, rendering them much harder to see. These large, low SB onjects are best viewed from dark-sky sites. Then you'll be amazed!

Thanks for the report - cheers!

[webboid]

Thanks DeepSkyBagger. A very good point regarding dark adaptation. I have a screen to block out the neighbours lights, which helps, but I did start looking for the galaxies in the Triangulum area fairly quickly.

The sky glow in that direction is the worst for me but I do recall observing around 20 galaxies in Virgo in that direction earlier this year. Other observing buddies in my area who are lucky to live out in the sticks remarked that is was a very transparent night for them too. Sadly a not very often occurrence.