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A Stargazing Marathon

Stargazer_00

By Stargazer_00
in Observing - Reports

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Stargazer_00

Stargazer_00

Posted
Posted

It's been a good few days this week with some clear skies and I've had the good fortune to go out most evening. Yesterday when I was out I realised I was a bit aimless and not making much of the night and ended up coming in after 90 minutes due to cloud.

Last night was forecast well from sunset to sunrise and being a Saturday night I vowed to ensure I would not waste this rare gift. I set about trying to find something constructive to do with the night and settled on a personal challenge, find and view 100 objects!

I set up my 10" at 8:30 to cool down, and emerged from my house at 8:50 and got started. My plan of attack was to pick a constellation and, using nothing by my Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas and a red torch, find everything in it that I could, and then move on to the next. I started with Orion and basically only got the nebula, moved up to Auriga before it went behind the trees on that side of my garden. Then on to Gemini, Cancer, Hydra, Monoceros (odd order but some clusters here popped out between rooftops at this point, Leo. Then I had to wait for Virgo to be in a prime spot and it wasn't Leo was there at the time. So I swung the scope around and picked off what I could in Ursa Major (M101 was not available yet).

At that point i was at 10:30 the wife indicated she was off to bed and it was time for me to let the dogs out. we have signals for different things so I dont come into the house unless Im needed. So I rounded up my gear so as to be able to police my dogs more efficiently (no wee thanks), had a quick cup of tea and a biscuit and sent them all off to bed. Went back out and took stock of where I was up to and what had moved around. I then went for the prize, the Virgo Cluster. Leo had proven to me that the galaxies were showing well tonight at this height and I've never gone after this area before. Mostly because it was intimidating to me and because I found the various guides around like TLAO's offering, a little difficult to follow. I make my own hopes these days and this was no exception. I found Denebola and launched off into space. The next hour was spent navigating Virgo, buoyed by my early success finding my two previous finds in the area M98 and M100, I hoovered up just about everything visible in the entire area! The finderscope was next to useless as the stars I needed to signpost from were entirely invisible in a 8x50 straight through. So I did everything in this area from the eyepiece. The Messiers in this area were easy to find and all stood out surprisingly well showing good detail beyond simple cores. I also observed many of the NGC object in this area, some stood out as prominently as th Messier's with one being both a surprise found while hopping and a real delight to view, NGC4526.

With the Virgo Cluster well and truly nailed I was up on cloud 9, still the only cloud in the area. My gift? Saturn! Which was just above the tree it rises behind. After the furious book to eyepiece navigation I had just endured navigating the Virgo cluster to completion this was a welcome rest up. I spent a good 10 minutes looking just at this beautiful planet. By contrast to the galaxies though the seeing was not good last night and looking at saturn was like looking through a heat haze. I decided that I had rested long enough and it was time for the final push. I was at midnight now and the streetlights were all off. I looked around to the east and saw Hercules took all of that and on it went. I revisited Ursa Major and bagged M101 as it was right on Zenith, awesome! Picked off the Owl (the only target I bothered to use a filter for even though I could see it without it), looked again at everything here I'd picked off earlier. Then I noticed that Cassiopeia had rotated out of the trees and was now visible, albeit low, in my north horizon. So I took everything in that, and I love this area. So many beautiful clusters. Next up, Cygnus & Lyra! Wondering why I was able to look at things I wasn't expecting to be looking at for another 5 months yet. Then some of the higher targets in Ophiuchus came into view and I nabbed those too.

At this point I couldn't feel my toes, my back was aching, my neck was aching. I was pining for a RACI more than a warm bed!! I had no idea what my count was but I had no idea what to look for next. I felt I had picked off everything that was possible and I was starting tire mentally and felt I was starting to lose the ability to create my hops from the pages of my atlas. I probably had another hour in me to ease off and just spend some time looking at individual targets for a while but I felt I had come out with a goal in mind and I had done it. It was 2am at this point, a 5 hour session. I quickly swung my scope back to Saturn to bid it farewell and then packed up and off to bed.

I would point our here that, bar the handful of early doubles I picked off, I spent the entire evening looking through my ES82 14mm. This thing is without a shadow of a doubt an urban DSO killer. In my 10" dob it gifted me with a beautiful inky black background, 86x magnification, 0.96 degrees true field and a 2.96mm exit pupil. No optical abberations at all, not even any field stop coma was visible to me. Pin sharp, edge to edge and simply amazing contrast. Absolutely perfect for DSO hunting.

So with the challenge set, I've woken up this morning to tally up. I had scribbled in a random order to keep catalogue objects together so it is not sorted in the chronology or sequence in which the targets where viewed. I have denoted only the catalogue number and some random notes. I may edit in the object type and consetellations later.

And here it is, the final list:

1. Jupiter (bands + 4 moons)

2. Saturn (rings, cassini division, ring shadow, disc belts, 3 moons)

3. M1

4. M3

5. M94

6. M105

7. M96

8. M95

9. M66

10. M65

11. M99

12. M100

13. M98

14. M85

15. M86

16. M84

17. M88

18. M91 (found this tricky to find but got it in the end)

19. M87

20. M89

21. M90

22. M58

24. M59

25. M60

26. M49

27. M42

28. M43

29. M35

30. M36

31. M37

32. M44

33. M67

34. M48

35. M47

36. M46

37. M81

38. M82

39. M51

40. M63

41. M13

42. M92

43. M101

44. M40

45. M109

46. M108

47. M97

48. M103

49. M57 (love the ring!)

50. M56

51. M29

52. M39

53. M12

54. M10

55. M14

56. M5

57. M53

58. M64

59. NGC884

60. NGC869

61. STOCK 2

62. CR463

63. BERK86

64. NGC6207

65. NGC6229

66. NGC659

67. NGC5846

68. NGC663

69. NGC654

70. NGC559

71. NGC637

72. NGC381

73. B34

74. NGC1746

75. NGC1907

76. NGC1664

77. NGC1582

78. NGC1893

79. NGC2158

80. NGC2129

81. NGC2266

82. NGC2304 (note says "tough". cant recall why)

83. NGC2264

84. NGC2254 (also a double - not counted seperately)

85. NGC2251 (note says "lovely mix of red, blue and white stars")

86. NGC2244

87. NGC2252

88. Struve 698

89. Struve 644

90. NGC1857 (note says "bright red surrounded by white diamonds")

91. Cr62

92. Cr89

93. Cr106

94. Cr111

95. Cr107

96. NGC4618

97. NGC4490

98. NGC4485

99. NGC3384

100. NGC3377

101. NGC4394

102. NGC4438 (the eyes galaxy 1)

103. NGC4435 (the eyes gaaxy 2)

104. NGC4461

105. NGC4478

106. NGC4638

107. NGC4526 (this was that awesome galaxy I found by surprise in Virgo while hopping. Nested between two stars, its beautiful and a real surprise!)

108. NGC4417

109. NGC4442

110. NGC4429

111. NGC4147

And there it is :) Not only did I rise to what I thought was an impossible challenge, I also went 11 beyond it!

I am very proud of myself with that haul.

I would further add I have noted 12 other objects I hopped for but did not find. I only recorded objects I absolutely saw and if I felt the view was tenuous I would go back a few steps and hop back and ensure I had seen the objects. A rule of 3. If you navigated back to it and see it 3 times in a row, then you can count it.

One object in particular seem absolutely elusive to me. A galaxy named UGC 10822. I've tried and tried for this thing but nothing comes out. I suspect I'll need to wait until it hits zenith before anything appears.

You might also note some really obvious targets not in the list like M31, M45 and such. These were all in the trees when I went out. I could've walked out into the street and bagged these at the start but I didnt. I just took what was available to me from my garden alone.

Also I didn't see the NGC under the Leo trio. This continues to be elusive, having only counted this one time so far on a previous session and even then it was a stretch.

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heavensabove

heavensabove

Posted
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thats some haul!!!! i thought i did well with 40 odd lol. very impressive mate!!!!

Very impressive indeed . The last few nights have been cracking but still very cold up here .

I usually manage to get 20-30 objects before hypothermia sets in .

Well done

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KevUU

KevUU

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Posted

Wow, really well done, you're right to feel proud of that :D

2 planets, 56 messiers, 53 others! (And here's me proud of 74 or so in a year...)

Thanks for sharing, really inspirational stuff.

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Stargazer_00

Stargazer_00

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Thanks mate. It was a real effort to be sure, not relaxed in anyway. It was a challenge I set myself because the previous nights I had been a bit aimless which is nice and relaxing. I wanted to do something that I would remember with such a promising night and I've done that I think. Set myself a personal best to beat :)

It was one of those nights when galaxies jumped out at you but the seeing on planets was just hideous.

Many of the Virgo NGC galaxies were nothing more than galactic cores, but those count in my book. Some were good though, well some being two or three tops. All the Messier's in the Virgo area bar M91 (which was little more than an hint of a core) were core + structure. I was very pleased with my first venture into this area and appreciate it might not look that good to me again.

Considering I live in the middle of a town and all the LP that brings I do seem to get rather good observations in it seems. All the Virgo cluster was done before the streetlights went off! My eyes have become pretty well tuned to picking out DSOs that would've been invisible to me a year ago. I can't wait now until I get a 14" :) I already have pre approval from the wife.

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