mdstuart

Another cluster that is often overlooked...as it does not have an M or even N number is IC4665. Lovely cluster in Opiuchus. http://www.capella-observatory.com/ImageHTMLs/OpenClusters/IC4665.htm Its above and right of Saturn late in the evening at the moment - best in binoculars like the Coma Berenices cluster. Enjoy and report back Mark

I once had a mirror that was fine. I left the cap off for about two weeks and holes appeared in the coating from overnight dew and dry cycles. My Hilux mirror on my 16 inch seems to be lasting well. Mark

I found that the mirror on mine just rested on the wood base. I added three blobs of silicon behind the mirror to attach it to the base in a more balanced way and this helped with removing some astigmatism I had initially with my dark star scope. Mark

http://clarkvision.com/visastro/omva1/

Great report. I tend to use a 7mm eyepiece in my 16 inch Meade but if I want to spot a small galaxy then in goes the 4.7mm. So I guess these eyepieces are 1.5mm / 1mm in terms of exit pupil. You are doing the right thing, experiment and work out what works best for you. If I remember there is an optimum size for the eye to spot a diffuse object and as the galaxy gets smaller you need a higher magnification. There is this yellow book that is all about this and goes in to how the eye works and gives a recommended magnification for most galaxies. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gCI9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=astronomy+book+best+magnification+eye&source=bl&ots=ylMIqR-hdW&sig=3C-LcHpaPWSNzQrwNzDGW0lzqKM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwictrmwxtTTAhXIDsAKHUQpCW0Q6AEI0AEwBg#v=onepage&q=astronomy book best magnification eye&f=false Mark Try a few more galaxies which have a 2 rating on my effort at a galaxy web site..I must update it as its getting out of date now. http://www.bristolweather.org.uk/galaxies/Deep_sky_galaxy_list.html

Great report. Lovely galaxy group. MarkMark

Enjoyed reading your post. Try about 150x to darken the background sky and try M59/60 Mark

Nice chart. The dob mob have now officially been to this group. Mark

So I was working my way through another list of galaxies last night. One of them was NGC 5463 in Bootes. At the time it was just another nice find in my 16 inch. I noted I could almost hold this galaxy even with direct vision. I could see the star below and right of the galaxy. Initially when I looked up the details it was just another typical mag 13 galaxy. I looked up the red shift and this was 7092km so pretty far away at just over 300 million light years. Then I looked up NGC 5482 which I had looked at next. It was also just over 300 million light years away. So had a stumbled on a group of galaxies at 300 million light years away? The answer seems to be yes. Here is the list of all 30 ish of them. They are all around mag 14 and 15. http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=NGC++5463&NbIdent=query_hlinks&Coord=14+06+10.510%2B09+21+12.27&parents=2&siblings=27&submit=siblings&hlinksdisplay=h_all When I was researching groups in 3D a while back I did find a blob of galaxies at 300 MLY in Bootes so I think this is a group within a larger gathering of groups all at this distance. You can see 5549 on this image which is in the 5463 group. Here is a better image. I cannot find any amateur images? Go on someone, It looks an interesting interaction. ARP seems to have missed these! Looking at the image there is another galaxy NGC 5463 B. It is to the top left in this image. I did not notice it last night. Mind you even the Gottleib with his 17.5 inch calls the companion extremely difficult. I might try again and all of you guys out their with the big dobs with your 1/10 wave mirrors can try it at high power Looking at my logs I have seen NGC 5463 / NGC 5482 / NGC 5546 / NGC 5549 / NGC 5519 / NGC 5436/7/8 in this group So go out and see how many galaxies you can spot in this group. Mark

Look at my triplet galaxy post from near Bootes Any nice triplet stars in Bootes? Mark

Lovely transparent sky yesterday after a day of showers with those super cumulonimbus clouds with anvils. After a few individual galaxies, I observed a lovely but faint triplet. NGC 5222/5221/5230. Research indicates they are 300 million light years away. They are quite hard to find by star hoping as they are between Bootes Coma and Virgo. I was trying to visualise where they are in 3D. They are in the general direction of the Virgo group but four times away. Turns out there is a lot of information out their as they include ARP 288 as one of the objects has a tidal tail, I am sure it will be on OOTW on the deep sky forum and loads of big dob users will have made out the tidal tail. I see a video astronomer on here has imaged it. Here is the best image I can find of them. So in the middle is 5222. It was a averted vision fuzzy circular object in my 16 inch in mag 5 skies. This is how the typical elliptical looks to me at the eyepiece. It was quite a hard spot. Then we have a classic face on spiral at the bottom left which is NGC 5230. This was slightly harder to spot as it had a low surface brightness again typical of a face on spiral. I then went after 5221. After a lot of effort I spotted the star between 5222 and 5221 and finally aided by the two pointer stars at the top left of this image I managed to see it intermittently with averted vision. Here is my drawing. So next time you are looking at M3 or perhaps the usual suspects in the Coma group or maybe Virgo galaxies why not go in between and look at this one. I bet there is a good image of this in that ARP book I saw at the Peak Star Party. Maybe Owen will do this group on the Web Deep Sky web site one day Go on add it to your to do observing list, you know you want to. Mark

Good to see all these sketches.

My old drawing looks like deep sky baggers but more basic. Mark

Glad you solved your mystery. I did spend time looking through my notes but could not match anything to your sketch. Mark