A few Herschel 400 galaxies

[Davesellars]

It was almost too good to be true... Really, did it happen? A perfectly clear night and no Moon! Transparency looked OK too - As soon as got home from work I was hell bent on getting out but first some priorities: Spent some time with my daughters and ate then packed up and set out just before 9ish. Was at my site and setup for 9:30pm.

The air was so still and no sparkling stars. Jupiter looked tempting to start the evening. By the time I'd traveled and set up the scope it had pretty much had time to cool down sufficiently. It was cold already below 0C so directly on with the dew heaters! Foxy came along while I was setting up (for sure he follows me as I come in to the allotment!), he didn't stay for long and went on his way...

 

Equipment used is a Celestron C8 with focal reducer on an EQ-5 mount (manual star-hopping) with a 60mm RACI and Telrad for pointing duties.

Jupiter was marvelous and saw the transit of Europa at the start and later with Io.  NELM for the night was approx 5 at the start and approx 5.5 by midnight.

Right, on to the main event - Herschel 400 galaxies ahoy! I've just started in anger the Herschel 400 list although I have a few logged already - I thought I'd start with Leo as this is pretty much in an optimal position right now and the first the constellations of galaxy season to disappear for the year. I can then work my way back.

M65 & M66 (a good place to start and really judge the transparency) -  My dark adaption was just about there on viewing these, the core of the spiral galaxies easily discerned with a medium extended oblong of haze more visible at 100x around them without real structure.

NGC3625 Spiral edge-on - I've tried for this one before a long time ago and failed. However this time and rather more patience this paid off a very line of haze only with averted vision and perhaps a dark area through it? Definitely improved at 100x with the 13mm giving deeper contrast rather than at 60x

NGC3593 Spiral - small smudge and faint only the core visible.

NGC3489 Almost stellar like unfocused. faint.

NGC3412 Obvious direct vision small galaxy

M105 - Bright elliptical with a small haze surrounding the core.

NGC3371 - At the side of M105 an almost equally bright elliptical but oblong shape obvious difference.

NGC3373 Spiral mag 11.9 - Not on the H400 but this was visible with averted vision directly below NGC 3371 showing the slight slant of angle better at 100x

NGC3377 Ellipical - Quite a standout disk showing reasonably bright.

NGC3227 Spiral - Is this face on? Hellishly faint! but just visible averted vision with lot of scope tapping and jiggery-pokery. Directly at the side of it is...

NGC3226 Elliptical Somewhat easier than the the above but still very faint.

NGC3190 Spiral Easy easy! Perhaps lots of concentration on 3227 is paying off...  Decent size disk of haze and slight brightening of the core visible with averted vision much improved at 100x and at 160x Right next to it is

NGC3193 - Elliptical - No detail rather stellar like core and not much else apart from some slight extended fuzz.

NGC3344 Spiral - The surprise of the night! A face on galaxy I could already see with the 60mm finder. There is a bright star within it or on top of this as well as a couple of other brighter stars and then the core showing a stellar appearance however the haze of the spiral structure encompassed this and with the 22mm I saw for a more than a fleeting moment with averted visiion the spiral structure of this galaxy. unfortunately I could not repeat it at the higher magnification of 100x however the haze of the galaxy was still evident with the core central.

Time for a break with a cup of tea a sandwich and a couple of biscuits for energy and viewing the majestic Jupiter again...  Then swung round to my old friend, M51...

M51 - Had a random stupid moment looking for it next to completely the wrong star thoroughly confused for a while... After realising my mistake, M51 with its partner galaxy NGC5195. I've seen this many times for for observing the H400 completeness why not again?  M51 was a reasonable sight at 160x showing a difficult to see with averted vision structure but really more like very subtle difference in light in areas.

NGC5195 - Spiral very bright core extended with haze almost touching M51 but for a small dark patch between them not quite complete. Best viewed a 160x showing more difference in brightness at the core to the spiral structure (but no definition).

M101 - I just had to really  It's an easy star hop especially with the Telrad you can park it right on it pretty much. As difficult as ever but the 22mm EP at 60x showing the core/fuzz. one day I'd love to get to a really dark site to see the spiral structure in this!!! I believe seeing also the brighter regions of one of the spirals at quite a separation from the core.

On to the Draco triplet - This is just starting to border on to an awkward position where the LP from Oxford centre starts to become a nuisance and definite brightening of the sky. Needs to get higher for me but hey ho... 1 out of the 3 and at least the Herschel object was bagged and tagged...

NGC5982. Tough! Needed averted vision to see the faint core of the elliptical. Nothing else.

Moving on towards M102 the slender edge-on galaxy:

NGC5907 Spiral - Again, tough! With 60x Needing averted visiion and time and jiggling stuff. The faint length of the galaxy made itself known on repeated occasions - no further detail apart from the brightening in contrast. At 100x I think less jiggling was required and I was able to hold the image a bit longer but still... Not easy! 

Another small break and on to Virgo now rising high enough for some serious observing. I thought I'd at least do a few of them take the load off another session in that area! 

So, from Vindiamatrix (I always take this route entering the core of the Virgo cluster for some reason - It just seems right  I was either lacking concentration as I directly stumbled on to the first galaxies... At first I was confused.. they were so faint. I was so used to hitting Messiers M60 and M59 first I thought I was on those but something had gone wrong. Then it clicked that I was actually on the Herschel 400 objects!  Oh yeaaaaah (light bulb moment!)  So after a moment of resetting my brain back to dim(mer) fuzzies I went back to the EP at 100x...

NGC4762 Spiral edge on - this is quite an object and simple to spot a little faint but easy enough direct vision and with averted vision much more of the length of the galaxy was visible. a slight brightning at the core nothing more. At the side of this was...

NGC4754 Spiral - A reasonable size oblong with no detail.

NGC 4660 Elliptical - Stellar appearance fuzzy.

I moved up to M60 and went for its neighbour NGC4647. I could not spot this until I upped the magnification to 160x where I could then split the core of the M60 with than of the faint core at the side of it.

This is where I got more than frustrated with SkySafari logging observations... Perhaps I was just tired but darn it... It takes too long to log observations like this and when you need to concentrate on the field of view it's easy to suddenly lose yourself like I just did - Need to find a better way. So, I called it a night. It was almost 2am time to pack up. but before then - One last look at Jupiter...

That was it. Everything was frozen or just wet. My battery had run out of juice and not just the one powering the dew heater... I hate packing up - it's a cold job and I was getting pretty tired but at the same time pretty wired from the session!

Before heading off I looked towards M44 the Beehive I could see the large cluster faintly naked eye (much more so with averted vision)

Sorry for the long report! If you made it this far... Well done! 

[Stu]

Dave, excellent report. I am replying as much so its easy to come back to it and read in full, I've only skimmed it so far. Nice session and a really good selection of targets observed. 

[Davey-T]

Great report Dave, thanks for sharing, have you thought of dictating your notes, you could then use some computer voice recognition wizardry to type them out

Dave

[seo]

Nice report Dave, thanks for sharing.

[Davesellars]

4 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Great report Dave, thanks for sharing, have you thought of dictating your notes, you could then use some computer voice recognition wizardry to type them out

Dave

You can dictate the notes with SkySafari...  It's just not that good at it.  That and it takes far too long to get to the observation note screen and then back again to the map.  By which time I've lost the next object if in a dense field of the DSOs (especially like the Virgo cluster...)

[Davey-T]

1 minute ago, Davesellars said:

You can dictate the notes with SkySafari...  It's just not that good at it.  That and it takes far too long to get to the observation note screen and then back again to the map.  By which time I've lost the next object if in a dense field of the DSOs (especially like the Virgo cluster...)

Yes, that's why I thought a separate little dictaphone tucked in a pocket with one of those head mounted microphones would suit.

Dave

[Davesellars]

Yes, I thought about something like that.  Not sure which way to go really. I think I may even go old-school and try writing them down on a notepad with the aid of a soft red light just sufficient to see what I'm writing - it's not too much hassle to write up properly afterwards. ANYTHING has to be better than the current method...

[laudropb]

Great report of a very busy session. Sounds like you had a very enjoyable time.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great report of a cracking session

[Davesellars]

Thanks!  Certainly those Herschel 400 objects are harder work.  I was pretty exhausted by the end of it but yes it was very enjoyable!