The Night Of Aquatic Birds, And 3 Galaxies Too!

[Superdavo]

Hi everyone!

Last night I had another chance to do some astronomy (though it nearly didn't happen after a dispute with my parents about making sure I got everything where it should be on an important sketch for GCSE astronomy (it had to be done on the night, and counted marks directly towards the end result), past my bedtime (by about 15 minutes).). Anyways, I decided to go out the front this time, as my back garden, although very dark (limiting mag > 5), is north facing, so I can only catch a few higher constellations. Unfortunately, the front garden has the problem of a very bright streetlamp exactly where I wanted to look. My goal was to catch as many objects that were lower down as possible.

My first success was the Swan nebula (M17). I didn't think I'd find it, as it was in Sagittarius, but I did. It was close to the light, but with a nebula filter, it showed up pretty well, easily revealing the shape.

After that (hence the aquatic bird theme(especially when you combine it with Cygnus)), I found the Wild Duck cluster (M11). Even though it was within 10 degrees of a bright streetlight, it was still very easy to see. With higher powers, it revealed itself to have many stars. It also seemed strange to me that it resolved little better than M13 - the great globular.

A little later on, I decided to look for the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51). It had eluded me for years, but this time I got it, as a faint, large, fuzz.

Finally, I decided that there are other galaxies just as bright, so I looked for M81 and M82 (Bode's galaxy + Cigar galaxy). They were smaller, and a fair bit easier to see. M81 showed up as little more than a fuzz, but M82 was obviously elongated, like a faint pencil.

After that, I had to pack up, as it was school the next day

David

[acey]

Well done, especially given your streetlight issue. I'm trying to think what other aquatic birds are up there - the Pelican Nebula comes to mind, though that's one for imagers more than visual observers. And there's a duck nebula in Canis Major (more usually called Thor's Helmet - one for later in the year).

Comparing the Wild Duck with M13 - the latter is about 4 times further away, a lot bigger and with a lot more stars, which are fainter because of the distance, hence harder to resolve. Both great sights.

[wxsatuser]

Nice going even with the LP, well done.

[jason.p]

Nice one David esp with your LP probs. Think I'll check those out myself tonight, sky looks promising.

Sent from my GT-P5110 using Tapatalk 2

[cotterless45]

Excellent, just hope that one day councils will get around to switching off all non necessary street lights.

M11 is one of the finest open clusters, almost globular, nice ,

Nick.

[Superdavo]

Thanks everybody!

David