Galaxy bonanza 13th March

[Aronnax]

Hi all, after looking out the window last night and seeing it was looking reasonable I decided to get in some Messier hunting, with the plan being to target Ursa Major, and Leo... I wasn't disappointed at the end of the night!

The night had a few clouds creeping across, but the air was fairly still, although the usual light pollution was visible from my garden, reflecting off any stray clouds. All of last nights observing was done with my SW 200p Dob, and the stock 25mm EP.

So, starting off in Ursa Major with M97 the Owl Nebula, alongside M108. Both of these were quite faint with clouds creeping over in patches at this stage, but I could see both of them as grey fuzzy blobs.

Moving on to some old favourites M81 and M82, this pair of galaxies were again a lovely sight, and showing brighter than either of M97/M108. It made me wish for truly dark skies.

I next tried to look for M40, the double star asterism, but to no avail. After quickly looking at Mizar and Alcor, and further splitting Mizar into two stars, I moved on to look for M106. It took a while with the clouds getting in the way, but eventually got a clear view of this galaxy. Again quite faint, and I'm sure at a dark site more detail would be hinted at!

Noticing that Leo was visible now, having risen from behind the neighbours house, I started hunting for galaxies in this constellation. I started to look for M95, M96, and M105 and I thought I'd found M95 & M96, but the two galaxies I was look at were much too close together. After looking at some charts, I worked out that I had found M105 and NGC 3384. I'd like to return here again to see if the very faint hint of grey I could see near the pair was NGC 3389. More searching slightly further afield is required next time to get M95 & M96.

Moving to the Leo Triplet next, this was unmistakeable. M65 & M66 made a lovely pair, with NGC 3628 fainter and slightly further away. I could just about fit all three in the FOV, but they were at the edges of the field (note to self: buy a nice low mag, wide angle EP!).

Getting cold toes at this point, I decided to give M40 a go again. With Ursa Major now even higher in the sky, and the clouds cleared there it was fairly easy to find the pair of similar stars not far off Megrez. They weren't particularly noteworthy, but I've seen the pair now!

With that it was time to pack up and go inside to thaw out, after a successful night spent mostly among the galaxies.

Clear skies

[WaveSoarer]

Great report and thanks for this.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report. Great haul of galaxies you got there. M40 isn't very special, but it is good to tick one more off the list.

[Double Kick Drum]

Nice report. Great haul of galaxies you got there. M40 isn't very special, but it is good to tick one more off the list.

Agreed. Once you've ticked it off, you'll never go back to M40 - it's one of those.

A great haul of objects there. Thanks for sharing.

[Special K]

Good work on all that and thanks for sharing the report. M50 was a case of mistaken identity it seems and didn't turn out to be the nebula it was first thought to be. I'll keep working on the Owl as I haven't been able to spot it yet, but think I need to get busy with all these other galaxies in the neighborhood.