Niels11

Oh yes that is quite interesting @josefk- looking at structure and where things are in relation to eachother within the Milky Way - there’s a project there! 😊

As I’ve been getting back into observing in the last few weeks I’ve been looking at my logbooks from a few years ago, and this is the funnest little project I did – I’m interested to hear if anyone else has any similar projects or experiences for viewing structures larger than galaxy clusters: superclusters, walls, filaments, voids? 

This was a small list of galaxies in the CfA2 Great Wall, a huge structure 500-750 Mly wide according to Wikipedia, across the sky between RA 8-17h from Leo to Hercules. I can’t remember how I came up with the list – I think I limited my search to the part of the wall between Coma and Hercules and I must have used either Sky Safari or the SDSS database to search for Galaxies in this region of the sky with a magnitude which might be observable with an 8” scope and with red shifts of about z=0.022 (98 Mpc, comoving distance) in the region of the Coma cluster (NGC 4889) to z=0.031 (141 Mpc) in the region of the Hercules cluster (NGC 6166). I could maybe extend the list eastwards through Leo, but I haven’t tried to do that yet.

This is the list of NGC galaxies I came up with and whether I managed to observe them with my 8” Newtonian – its really just a string of galaxies across the sky, which fit the distance and direction to be part of the CfA2 Great Wall, the rest is imagination, like a lot of the pleasure of astronomy for me, especially in a medium sized scope under light pollution

4889, mag 11.75, z=0.022, observed, Bortle 5, SQM 19.5 

4874, mag 13.59, z=0.024, observed, Bortle 5 SQM 19.5 

5004, mag12.89, z=0.024, observed, Bortle 5, SQM 19.5 

5032, mag 12.8, z=0.021, searched but not found, Bortle 5, SQM 19.5 

5223, mag 13.0, z=0.024, observed, Bortle 5, SQM 19.5 

5352, mag 13.0, z=0.027, observed, Bortle 5, SQM 19.5 

5421, mag 13.2, z=0.026, not searched for 

5515, mag 12.9, z=0.026, searched but not found, in Bortle 5, or Bortle 1-2, SQM 21.77 

5541, mag 12.7, z=0.026, observed, Bortle 1-2, SQM 21.77

5654, mag 13.0, z=0.030, observed, Bortle 1-2, SQM 21.77

5755, mag 13.5, z=0.032, searched but not found in Bortle 1-2, SQM 21.77

5888, mag 13.4, z=0.029, observed, Bortle 1-2, SQM 21.77

5993, mag 13.1, z=0.032, observed, Bortle 1-2, SQM 21.77

6173, mag 12.1, z=0.029, not searched for

6166, mag 11.8, z=0.031, observed, Bortle 5, SQM 19.5

6137, mag 12.39, z=0.031, not searched for

6109, mag 12.69, z=0.030, not searched for

These observations were made over a few new moon sessions: a couple of sessions in my suburban back garden in early June, and a couple of sessions on holiday in the Lizard in early August. I was using my 8” f5 Skywatcher, Leica Zoom, barlowed at 1.5 (6-12mm) or 2.5 (3.6-7.1mm) and UWAN 16mm.

Doing this I felt quite in awe of the vastness of the universe and that I was able to reach out and touch that even with my quite modest little set-up - that is how it is with any Galaxy, and this was like another step up in perspective.

I'm hoping to revisit this project later this year, and maybe expand it. And I'm looking for any other projects of a similar kind which any of you might have to suggest?

Well your post inspired me to go back through my logs and see how many I’ve observed - I’m just back into the hobby after a 4 year break, and before that over a few years I was sometimes observing the H400 amongst other things. Turns out I have 134, not a bad start. 115 of those are galaxies, which is half of the 231 Galaxies on the list. Now I can use this log as another handy prompt to planning 😊

13 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Thanks guys! Another quick bit of viewing tonight - Jupiter and Moon - lovely views between and through the clouds 😊

Hi all, I’m Niels, getting back into the game after a few years off - time flies, I could have sworn I’d been out at least one night last winter, but it’s been 4 years! I started 13 years ago and was pretty active  for about 5 years, even did that UCLAN certificate in Cosmology, then gradually less active for a few years as other evening hobbies would clash with clear skies.
 

Well I already managed two nights in February, and that’s all the weather allowed, one of them even at my darker site at the new moon, which was great. Just with the 4” Achro so far - pleased to discover the old favourites were easy to find again, M81/82 & NGC3077, the Orion Nebula, Pleiades, double cluster; it’s not all gone - and the star-hopping and hunting for faint fuzzies felt just as natural as ever in the northern bits of UMa and the borderlands of Draco. I’m working my way up to the 8” Newtonian/GEM - I’m rusty at the set-up, will have a trial run indoors tonight.

Looking forward to lurking on here and making the odd post or two 👋