Early morning Virgo galaxies

[Rhys Hardwick]

Just had a fantastic observing session.  I have recently treated myself to a Skywatcher 250px 10" dob, and this was my first real session of hunting for new objects.  Woke up at 0400 (insomnia!) and saw the sky was clear.  A quick check of the planisphere told me Virgo was high, and so, with the help of Turn Left at Orion, I got hunting.

Where I am in Barry, the sky is not usually great, but at this hour, all the neighbours lights were off, and I guess I had a limiting magnitude of 3.5-4, maybe more.  

In the end, I had 17 new galaxies on my list to tick off.  All were pretty faint, with a good bit of sky brightness.  Particularly nice though were the chain of M84, M86, the pair NGC 4438 and 4435, and NGC4461.  M87 was probably the most obvious of the lot.  

And on writing this, I realised I missed a first chance to have a good look at Mars - how I missed it, nobody knows.  Engrossed in galaxy hunting.  Can't say I'm going to get up early deliberately in the near future, with the weather the way it is, I was cloud dodging as it was!

All in all, very pleased with my haul, and my new scope.

[cotterless45]

Excellent, you did the right thing. I like to go to bed , have a sleep, then wake up in the early hours when all is quiet and clear. Managed 122 of the Virgo clusters so far, some are extraordinary bright.

Mars is quite good, but the best thing in the sky , high in the east is

Comet Lovejoy,

Nick.

[Rhys Hardwick]

I forgot about that too, not being prepared for a morning session. Maybe I'll plan one soon!