12th / 13th May 2012 - M13 and New Galaxies

[Double Kick Drum]

I managed to get out for a second night in a row for an interrupted session.

Seeing as though M13 is flavour of the month, I spent a while looking in more detail. On lower powers it is just a bright fuzzy but it came to life in the 8mm X-Cel eyepiece which allowed me to resolve the outer parts. I moved up another power with the 5mm X-Cel and found that it still appeared bright. I would go so far as to say that I could see hints of chains of stars, varying pockets of brightness near the core and a little bit more resolution. Even in a 5 inch scope, it looked like you could fall into it. A very beautiful sight.

The nearby galaxy NGC 6207 was not possible: on a clearer night it is probably on my very limit.

I then moved to Leo to pick up one or two galaxies I had previously missed. Sadly NGC 3193 was impossible to discern from a star that it envelopes. NGC 3190 close by was possible though was very small, feint and could only be seen with averted vision.

A bigger scope would also be able to reveal NGC3185 and NGC 3187 to make a nice foursome between Gamma and Zeta Leonis but the stats for these two indicated it was not worth trying for them.

I then moved North into Leo Minor to hunt for NGC 3344, which I found in between Flamsteed stars 40 and 41, in an arrow shaped asterism of stars around magnitude 10. Again, no detail could be seen just dim haze with averted vision.

By now the sky had deteriorated a little a there was some intermittant hazy cloud now blowing across.

I finished by looking at NGC 3665 in between 55 and 57 Ursae Majoris. This was also not easy to see but I put this down to the poorer sky. The magnitude and surface brightness of this galaxy indicated it wouldn't normally be a struggle.

A quite brief but satisfying session none the less.

__________________________________________________ ______

Observing Session: Friday/Saturday 11th/12th May 2012, 22:20 hrs to 02:00 hrs BST

VLM at Zenith: 5.1 maximum

New - Revisited - Failed

[rory]

i found 6207 faint with the 8", even then it was faint. like your description of m13 dkd.

[Mike73]

Yep interesting notes on M13. Unfortunately my notes from the first time I viewed it (with 8") aren't detailed enough, lesson learned I guess.

Sounds like seeing conditions really varied around the country last night but two good nights out who can complain?

Mike

[Double Kick Drum]

Oops!

Just noticed I didn't update the observing time and date.

I also missed off the stuff about failing to find NGC 5353 in Canes Venatici before the cloud obscured everything.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice set of fuzzies again. I see you have been busy while I was not looking.