15th March 2012 - The Half Century Of Galaxies Up In The Fog

[Double Kick Drum]

Ok, ok, so fog is an overstatement but with a lack of recent astro-activity I was getting desperate to see something.

Visibility was a good three quarters of a magnitude from optimum but just good enough to warrant an hour outside.

I purposely picked two new high surface brightness galaxies which were relatively easy to find.

First up was NGC 2841 in Ursa Major. The galaxy is just to the West Southwest of Theta Ursa Majoris and the arrangement of nearby stars makes it easy to spot when refering back to maps. It appeared as a feint smudge with a hint of a stellar core, though this was only eeked out after prolonged viewing.

NGC 4490 was even harder to pick up in the conditions. Near Beta Canes Venaticorum, it appeared as a quite large elliptical ghostly glow after persistent viewing with averted vision. It took a good 15 minutes to be certain I had even seen the thing!

I did spend a few minutes earlier in the evening enjoying the bright white sight of half (well, just over) a Venus. It's getting quite close now. Hopefully I will catch it again as a crescent in the near future.

I look forward to better conditions. These two galaxies are probably quite pleasing to look at in decent conditions.

More importantly.....50 up (not including our own galaxy).

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Observing Session: Thursday 15th March 2012, 19:20 hrs to 20:25 hrs GMT

Seeing at Zenith: 4.7

New - Revisited - Failed

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice pair of fuzzies. Got them last year under good conditions. Congrats on the half century!