Mike JW

ARP 120 - what a beauty this one is. NGC 4438 is the left hand one with its enormous thin cloud of stars surrounding it. Arp thought its neighbour was perturbing it but it turns out it is a line of sight pairing. This leads to the question as to which galaxy is messing with NGC 4438? Likely to be M86. There is very little dust in the surrounding star cloud. The shot also contains a galaxy at Q6.1, and several between 1 and 2 billion lyrs away. Mike Here is M86, also from last night.

Hi Bill, This was my first target last night and I was well rewarded. Thanks for pointing this one out. In fact I went back to it 40 minutes later when it was darker and had a second look. Mike

I got a chance to view 4 of the 5 SN last night.

A wonderful pair to view. Now onto the never ending list. Mike

When I do more Jocular outings I will experiment with the stretch functions and feed back my conclusions. Mike

Two nights ago I decided to use my STF 180 Mak Cas with the ultrastar for the first time. I normally use the STF for doubles, lunar sketching and planets. I also wanted to use the Jocular software as created by Martin. Using the STF (at f5.0) gave me the chance to do some wider fov shots and hence lends itself to nebulae. I did start with an Arp galaxy pairing but quickly decided that I prefer the smaller fov, and higher magnification of the C11 (or the 15). Cepheus was conveniently placed so I headed to IC 1396 for a cluster/nebulosity combination. The triple star just up from the centre is BU1143, near to centre is STI2582 and bottom of view is STF 2819. I am always a sucker for doubles. Using Jocular I was easily able to try the different settings to find the best combination of tight-ish stars and to show the fuzz. It worked much better than Starlight LIve. I also found that on SLL it was struggling to stack this view but Jocular happily dealt with all the info coming in. What I should have done is slightly move the scope and look around the area to pick up IC 1398A and B. Next I headed to NGC 7129 but miss-typed so I ended up at NGC 7139 - so much for the idea of going for extended objects. Again I found jocular with its wide range of options (hyper, log y, y, etc) very useful. Below is a zoomed in view. I then abandoned going for wide fov objects. Next up is the Bow tie Nebula, NGC 40 - zoomed in shot below Now for the faint and small. Abell 75. Apparently one of the brighter PN in the Abell list. I could only just make it out despite playing with the settings so the image below was loaded into Photoshop and tweaked to show Abell 75. The live view was faint unlike this photo shopped view. I think I have the central star. To finish the selection here is Gyulbudaghian's Nebula (HH215). It is a variable nebula and if I understand correctly is the result of jets of gas coming from PV cephei, the star at the top end of the fan shaped grey fuzz. I had to photoshop the image to enhance the view. The live view was faint. I certainly enjoyed the outing with the STF and gained more confidence with Jocular. I can see myself gradually going over to Jocular. It seems more versatile than SLL. Also as we know SLL is no longer being developed, whereas Jocular is being upgraded. Out of interest I did not come to any conclusion as to which type of stretch works well for nebulae. PS. I also took a peak at M13 with the STF - lovely sight but did not save it. Mike

Thanks Alan for bringing these SN to our attention. 3643 was already on my list. If I get a chance this week I will take a look with my set up and add them to your post. Mike

Always amazed by what you achieve from your site. Mike

Stu and Fraunhoffer - glad you found it and well worth a visit. Mike

Your sketches capture the feel of these areas. Hortensius domes are on my list to pay a visit. The shading you used on the H. Domes gives a good 3D effect. Mike

Piccolomini is a lovely crater to often visit. Thanks for posting. Mike

The sketch works so well. It is so 3D that I felt I could actually reach inside it. A cracker. Well done. Mike

The visual view in a 24 is mind blowing and yes I never tire of M13.

Marv - so true and miss my view of it in the 20" Dob I once owned. Mike

VV 364, VV 356, VV 1815, VV 1860, VV 1862 One of the pleasures of the VV journey is it offers a chance to go to less known areas, see some wonderful sights, to be faced with some difficult location challenges and a view of some tiny galaxy pairs or triples....... Last night there I was in Hercules using RA/DEC co-ordinates for apparent date with absolutely no idea of what I might see. Conditions were poor, much moonlight. I have had to spend a bit of time in Photoshop to achieve a reasonable image ( 5 mins of messing about for each image). The shots below are in the "photographically poor galaxy section" - difficult to locate and to be sure I was on the right galaxy but fun to get a result (not all are as good as I would like). In each shot are various other distant galaxies. Mike

I was out there after midnight and synced the scope to M13 before heading off to VV galaxies in Hercules. May well post the VV shots later. So here is M13 - yet again - just one 5 second sub, using the 15" Dob. Any longer or doing stacks ruined the shot. Mike

Hi Roelb, don't forget Martin's VV list at the start of the thread. Mike

Hi Bill, My posting of last year was with a C9. Here is this year's visit with the 15. Hint of a dust lane in the nearby edge on galaxy. Mike

Hi Bill, Amazed you got the jet in M87, although I note the time needed to do it. I too visited M87 again (last visit was a year ago) and this time I pointed the 15 at it - just 130 seconds. The jet is visible - just. If I play with the settings and exclude most of the galaxy it is more visible. At the time of taking various shots I was able to pick up the jet in just 10 secs with the correct settings . Recently on one of these exceptional nights we have had (minus the aircraft contrail effect), a mate spotted it visually (just) in a 24" scope. Arp 134 - visited a few days ago, with the C11. Bit of a messy shot.

Like you I find the VV catalogue interesting. Good to see your shots. Are Rose galaxies also VV galaxies? Mike

I sent the scope to SHK 213 in Bootes and what a delight it turned out to be. I just could not resist thinking of it as "paw print". The big galaxy is PGC 1791288, mag 15 and hits the 1.1 billion lyrs away category. Its 3 immediate companions and the 3 fuzz spots above it make up SHK 213. From 1791288 head to 2 o clock and you see PGC 1791825 , mag 17 and is a mere 400 million lyrs away. Approx half between the two is a circular fuzz - mag 19 galaxy, PGC 4384213, 1.15 billion lyrs away so might be a true neighbour of 1791288. Various other galaxies can be detected, including a mag 19 Quasar. SHK 376 is another delight. As soon as it popped on the screen I saw a bowl shape. The big fuzz is PGC 1686029, mag 15 and 983 million lyrs away. Its companions are mag 17/18. Cast your eye around this image and sure enough there lurk quite a few other mag 18 galaxies and a couple of mag 19 ones. SHK 375 is not far from SHK 376. I always wonder what I shall see and will the GOTO have been accurate enough to get them in the narrow fov of the camera. I knew straight away I was on target. Another heavenly delight. This time a triplet of doubles! and there are 5 others scattered, 4 below and one off to the left (I may have picked this one up or is it a noise spot?) The obvious bright double are PGC 3813682 (2 billion lyrs away and mag 17) and 1644119 (2 billion lyrs away, mag 18). The pair above are just shy of mag 19 with one having a distance of 2 billion lyrs.

ARP 143 lurks in Lynx and here we have another galactic carve up. This is the mess as a result of two galaxies meeting each other. The elliptical/lenticular NGC 2444 is on the left and has stayed reasonably intact but its companion NGC 2445 (Im pec designation, says it all) is having a hard time. The nucleus has stayed fairly central but four/five obvious star formation regions can be seen. In high resolution colour images much blue regions are seen. Not the place for a quiet life! Mike

VV 644. Now this pairing in Camelopardalis is a pair of two spirals coalescing (classed as PC in the VV catalogue). They are certainly messed up - looks like 4 galaxy cores to me. Stars must be flying about in many directions. Mike

Here is another very interesting VV in Camelopardalis. VV 539 - UGC 3906. Classed as PK = pair in contact. Both classed as spirals. Wonderful tidal plume forming with I presume what are star forming regions (knots) in this plume. Mike

Here is a VV beauty in Camelopardalis - VV 439. It is classed as M = one satellite on the primary branch. I cannot decide which blob of fuzz would be the satellite. Quite clearly a spiral with a bar (SBc) The one at 3 o clock might be it, but is it a star? There is a blob at the end of the lower spiral. Also there is a blob to the left of the nucleus. Or what about the blob at 12 0 clock? Mike