3rd March 2013 - Cumulus Is My Enemy

[Double Kick Drum]

A very brief session cut short by cumulus clouds which seemed to move to where ever I pointed the scope, after a couple of early successes.

In the half hour I did have with the scope cooled down I did manage to pick up a couple of difficult galaxies near Lambda and Mu Ursae Majoris. First was NGC 3184, a quite large nebulous patch just to the West of Mu. Harder to see was NGC 3198, to the North of Lambda.

As I then revised the positions of NGC 3166 and NGC 3169, a galactic pair in Sextans, the cloud must have rolled in and made it impossible to even navigate to the South of Leo. I did try changing tack but the sky filled further with the fluffy stuff.

Tomorrow looks like a possibility so not too downhearted.

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Observing Session: Sunday, 3rd March 2013, 19:30 hrs to 20:15 hrs GMT

VLM at Zenith: 5.1

New - Revisited - Failed

[KevUU]

That's rough luck DKD. I hope you're out now to make up for it. I'm calling it quits for the weekend

[KevUU]

Gah! Sorry, confused my dates... It would be nice to get a decent session tomorrow, but I won't hold my breath.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Sorry to hear your session was cut short. Better luck next time. Still, you increased your Herschel-400 count by two.

[Double Kick Drum]

An even shorter session today!!!!

This time my enemy was cirrostratus (I think) followed by some more permanent thicker cloud, grrrr!

The only good news was that I did manage the long star hop to NGC 2655, the galaxy in Camelopardalis. An average density hazy patch, almost circular in appearance and found in an asterism that looked like a 8th to 11th magnitude crossbow.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

NGC 2655 is nice. I have very fond memories of this one because I spotted my first supernova in it.

[Double Kick Drum]

NGC 2655 is nice. I have very fond memories of this one because I spotted my first supernova in it.

I wonder when i'll get my first chance to nab a supernova. I think we are long overdue in this galaxy but I would take anything close enough to be better than magnitude 11 to at least give me a chance of spotting one against the background nebulosity of its host galaxy. This probably narrows it down to a handful of galaxies which could be contenders. I think the one in M101 a year or so ago came quite close.

I'm not going to hold my breath!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

The one in M101 went all the way up to mag 9.9. Currently SN2013aa is at 11.8 and would be visible in your scope if the declination weren't so far south (the stellar SN are easily spotted against the fuzz of a galaxy, just throw some magnification at it).

I regularly consult this source:

http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html