Globs Everywhere!

[Sam]

Last night was the fourth night in a row of skies :sunny: :sunny: (and the best so far, with no cloud at all). At about 11:30pm I was finished with imaging and thought I'd add a few more Messiers to the list before heading back inside. The moon had gone so the sky was less washed out. Added to that there were a few more constellations visible that I hadn't paid much attention to before, Bootes, Hercules, Corona Borealis and Draco.

I spent quite a bit of time imaging M101 so after I put the camera away I thought it be good to take in the photons directly - quite a faint galaxy but certainly a large fuzzy patch with a brighter core, and maybe just a hint of some spiral arms. The next stop was M102 (well what Stellarium lists as M102 - my star chart has it as the same as M101, so I guess there's a few unresolved "issues" with that one) - just a little to the left in RA from M101. This galaxy is very bright and clearly edge on with a bulge in the middle.

Just after midnight I thought it would be good to do some Globular Cluster hunting. I missed M13 last year as Hercules was off into the London LP by the time I got my telescope. What a huge cluster! and sooooo many stars - I had a good look at it through the 10mm and 25mm eyepieces. The next one was M92 - a bit smaller than M13 but still very impressive.

The last Messier for the night was just off the end of Virgo, M5 - another very impressive Globular Cluster. Another great night with some excellent new sights!

cheers

Sam

[jgs001]

Great report Sam, you had a good night.

[barkis]

You are so lucky with your skies Sam. I envy you, the seeing at my location has been non existent for longer than I can remember.

If the situationdoesn't change for the better soon, I can lock the Obs. up for the summer.

Anyway, It's a pleasure to read the reports of those who are getting opportunities to view, and they are welcome.

Ron.

[Casus belli]

Did you see any colour in M13? Most nights when I've seen it, all I can see is a whitish blob. But one crisp clear night I'm sure I saw some hints of gold and blue specks running through it. Im beginning to wonder if it was a case of the "want to see's"

[Sam]

CB, It was pretty uniformly white but there was the odd hint of yellowy white in some of the pin points (or I was dreaming it). It's certainly a bright cluster.

[vemarstar]

I did locate M3, the other night but the sky has been full of cloud for worcestershire area for the last few days but friday today it does look more promising i will try M101 tonight.

[Astronut]

Regarding M101 and M102.

Some sources list them as one and the same and others list M102 as NGC5866 which is the edge-on galaxy you observed in Draco. It's worth reading up on the history of M101 and M102. I haven't fully genned up on it yet but apparently a mistake was made by Messier and/or Mechain and Mechain concluded in a letter to the 18th century astronomical powers-that-be that M102 was a duplicate observation of M101 due to an error in Messier's star charts. I'm not sure how or why yet (I must read more about it) but some now believe that NGC5866 discovered by Herschel later on is M102. I don't know if the jury is still out on M102's real identity.

[GazOC]

M102 used to be thought of as a duplicate of M101 but now NGC5866 seems to be the favorite candidate.