Leo Galaxies with a 4.7"

[John]

I was supposed to be concentrating on Mars tonight but got distracted by the Leo galaxies

I'd set up my ED120 refractor for Mars so the aperture for galaxy hunting is limited but I still managed to pick out 7 fairly easily:

M65, M66 and NGC 3638 - a nice trio @ 45x with the 20mm Nagler

M95, M96, M105 and NGC 3384 - all four fitting easily in the FoV of the 31mm Nagler and just cramming into the field of the 20mm Nagler.

Contrast with the 20mm eyepiece was better thanks to the higher magnification giving a darker background sky.

7 galaxies equals a heck of a lot of stars glowing faintly over 30 million light years away

My limiting magnitude visually was around 5.5 tonight which is not bad but not the best I can get here. I thought the 4.7" refractor did quite well really

I'd better spend some time on Mars now, as that was the original intention

[andrew63]

John, there were a few of us in that general area tonight. I now realise i saw NGC 3384 but did not at the time know what is was! In my 4" refractor it looked like a out of focus star - M105 next to it was a lot more apparent.

Thanks for posting.

andrew

[Double Kick Drum]

Thanks for sharing.

It's been a while since I have seen M65 and M66 and wish I had known about its companion. Still, another new target acquired.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report. Leo has many beautiful sights. Try NGC 2903, if you haven't already done so. Better than some of the Messiers in my book.