Fishing galaxies! What a fun! - PART 2 -

[Piero]

Another clear moonless night here.  I started with M93, a fine open cluster in CMa that I missed last winter. It is still easily visible from the South of England in the early evening. This evening I explored Messier and some bright NGC galaxies in CVn and Southern UMa. Thanks to a suggestion by @Paul73, I finally spotted the Sombrero Galaxy a low target from these latitudes which requires a dark-ish sky to be found. Finally, a little tour in Coma Berenices to spot the Black Eye galaxy.

Hope you enjoy this second part.

 

Date 06/04/2016
Time 20:50-22:30
Location Cambridge, UK
Altitude 12m
Lunar Phase Waning crescent 0%
Temperature 7C (WSW 26 km/h)
Seeing 4 - Poor seeing
Transparency 5 - Clear
Darkness 19.59
Telescopes Tele Vue 60 F6
Eyepieces Delos 12, Delos 8, Vixen SLV 9mm, PM2.5x

M93 Pup Opn CL 30x, 45x, 100x
Star hopping from Zeta Pup. Zeta Pup forms a chain of 3 stars of decreasing brightness. Star hopping is quite easy. At 30x and 45x this object reminded me of M67. At 100x, many stars appeared clearly. It's a fine open cluster this worth being observed to me. Unfortunately it is quite low in the sky from the UK.

Jupiter - Planet 100x
Despite the poor seeing, I still managed to spot the North temperate belt with this new eyepiece plus powermate. The view seems sharp to my eye. I will need to check this on the Sun and under better seeing.

Alpha CVn Dbl Star 45x
Cor Caroli. The main component seemed white, whereas the secondary component seemed yellow. Nice pair.

M94 CVn Galaxy 45x
Star hopping from Alpha CVn (Cor Caroli). Round shape visible with direct vision. It was quite bright to my eye.

NGC4490 CVn Galaxy 45x
Quick star hopping from Beta CVn (Chara). Not too difficult to spot with direct vision.

NGC4449 CVn Galaxy 45x
Star hopping from Beta CVn (Chara) and NGC4490. Faint target. Just a soft cloud.

M106 CVn Galaxy 45x
Star hopping from Beta CVn (Chara). Large galaxy. This should be a nice target under darker skies and larger aperture.

M109 UMa Galaxy 45x
Vacuum Cleaner Galaxy. Reached from Gamma UMa (Phad). Gamma UMa was put out of the field of view. Detectable with averted vision with difficulty. Congratulations Messier to spot this. It seems one of the most difficult to me.

M51 CVn Galaxy 45x
Whirlpool Galaxy. Star hopping from Eta UMa (Alkaid). I already saw this target from a dark sky. Under this sky, it looked like a grey blob with direct vision. With averted observation and jiggling two diffuse source of light were detectable. No defined shape.

M63 CVn Galaxy 45x
Sunflower Galaxy. Star hopping from Eta UMa (Alkaid) and M51. Far smaller size than M51. Just a grey blob with a circular shape.

NGC5005 CVn Galaxy 45x
Star hopping from M63. There is a larger triangle first followed by a smaller triangle pointing in the opposite direction. Not difficult and visible directly.

NGC5033 CVn Galaxy 45x
Located next to NGC5005. It was extremely faint in comparison and required averted vision. Very faint light.

M104 Vir Galaxy 45x
Sombrero Galaxy. Star hopping from Delta Crv (Algorab). 3 degrees North there is a large triangle which indicates the direction to M104. Firstly, 4 close bright stars are found. Secondly other 4 close stars follow. M104 appeared like a grey little and featureless cloud. Still glad to have managed to spot one of the most beautiful galaxies out there.

M53 Com Glob CL 45x
I was aiming at Alpha Com, but instead I pointed M53. Nice little but still dense globular cluster.

M64 Com Galaxy 45x
Star hopping from Alpha Com. There are not many stars in the area. I used 38 and 36 Com as pointers to reach an asterism similar to a crow's claw. From this, moving to 35 Com was straightforward. M64 showed a grey round fuzzy shape and was visible with direct vision.

12 Com Star 45x
The brightest star in Berenice's' hair. Close to 12 Com, there is an orange/ carbon star. The two are not related, but they form a nice pair to see at this magnification.
 

[FenlandPaul]

Great report again, Piero.  Your TV really is an impressive scope that punches so far above its weight.  It was a very transparent sky for much of the night.

[Stu]

Another great session Piero. I almost can't imagine what you would see if we stuck you on the end of an 18" dob under dark skies ??

[Piero]

5 hours ago, Stu said:

Another great session Piero. I almost can't imagine what you would see if we stuck you on the end of an 18" dob under dark skies ??

I do not know what I would see, but for sure it would cause me severe aperture fever!

Seriously, I would love it, but I would be also happy to observe these targets with patience. I often report many targets in my reports, but this is also due to the fact that my current aperture does not enable me to observe them properly. Although spotting faint and very faint targets is somehow pedagogic for training one's eye, I believe this hobby can be deeply appreciated when one spend a sufficient amount of time, dedication and passion on fine targets, in order to get insights about their features. For doing so, a bit of aperture is required, likely 8" my guess would be. 

I hope that my threads do not put people off about the capabilities of their larger telescopes, but just show that with a bit of eye training many targets can be spotted with a small aperture and that significantly more can be observed and spotted with a larger one.

[FenlandPaul]

56 minutes ago, Piero said:

I do not know what I would see, but for sure it would cause me severe aperture fever!

Seriously, I would love it, but I would be also happy to observe these targets with patience. I often report many targets in my reports, but this is also due to the fact that my current aperture does not enable me to observe them properly. Although spotting faint and very faint targets is somehow pedagogic for training one's eye, I believe this hobby can be deeply appreciated when one spend a sufficient amount of time, dedication and passion on fine targets, in order to get insights about their features. For doing so, a bit of aperture is required, likely 8" my guess would be.

I hope that my threads do not put down people about the capabilities of their larger telescopes, but just show that with a bit of eye training many targets can be spotted with a small aperture and that significantly more can be OBSERVED and spotted with a larger one.

Eye training is definitely important.  Between my old 8" and my dob, I was scope-less for a while and spent a lot of time with my 20x80 bins.  It was remarkable what could be seen on good nights; I still enjoy the purity of the challenge from time to time.  Clearly the quality is not a patch on the mighty TV-60 though!!

[Stu]

2 hours ago, Piero said:

I do not know what I would see, but for sure it would cause me severe aperture fever!

Seriously, I would love it, but I would be also happy to observe these targets with patience. I often report many targets in my reports, but this is also due to the fact that my current aperture does not enable me to observe them properly. Although spotting faint and very faint targets is somehow pedagogic for training one's eye, I believe this hobby can be deeply appreciated when one spend a sufficient amount of time, dedication and passion on fine targets, in order to get insights about their features. For doing so, a bit of aperture is required, likely 8" my guess would be.

I hope that my threads do not put down people about the capabilities of their larger telescopes, but just show that with a bit of eye training many targets can be spotted with a small aperture and that significantly more can be OBSERVED and spotted with a larger one.

Please don't take my post as anything other than encouragement and a little tongue in cheek fun Piero. Your reports are inspiring for all who have small aperture scopes and want to push them to the limits, but in no way dismiss the benefit of larger aperture.

[Piero]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Please don't take my post as anything other than encouragement and a little tongue in cheek fun Piero. Your reports are inspiring for all who have small aperture scopes and want to push them to the limits, but in no way dismiss the benefit of larger aperture.

No worries Stu, I took your comment in a very positive way.  

My words were a bit more general to encourage members to observe targets and not to just spot them as I do most of the time.

[Davesellars]

Well done on another great and productive session, Piero - Another fine list of DSOs!   Uff, I didn't have the energy after Tuesday's late session to get out but it so wonderfully clear and no Moon but it I noted is was again wonderfully transparent when I briefly woke at 1am.

You're so right about training the eye.  This game's all about experience and time behind the eyepiece getting the technique right.  All to easy it is to up the aperture without getting really learning when it comes to faint DSOs.  Understanding the limit of the sky darkness and surface brightness is far more important (I notice you take an SQM? darkness reading for session - do you have a gadget for this or some other source?) and anything below that is fair game to be seen.

I'm trundling through the Herschel 400 list after near as possible completing the Messier 110 objects - The difference is quite stark and now when viewing Messier 110 objects they seem hugely bright whereas when I was starting the Messier list they were initially difficult.

[Piero]

54 minutes ago, Davesellars said:

Well done on another great and productive session, Piero - Another fine list of DSOs!   Uff, I didn't have the energy after Tuesday's late session to get out but it so wonderfully clear and no Moon but it I noted is was again wonderfully transparent when I briefly woke at 1am.

You're so right about training the eye.  This game's all about experience and time behind the eyepiece getting the technique right.  All to easy it is to up the aperture without getting really learning when it comes to faint DSOs.  Understanding the limit of the sky darkness and surface brightness is far more important (I notice you take an SQM? darkness reading for session - do you have a gadget for this or some other source?) and anything below that is fair game to be seen.

I'm trundling through the Herschel 400 list after near as possible completing the Messier 110 objects - The difference is quite stark and now when viewing Messier 110 objects they seem hugely bright whereas when I was starting the Messier list they were initially difficult.

Thanks Dave,

Here is the tool I use for measuring sky darkness: http://www.firstlightoptics.com/unihedron-sky-quality-meters/unihedron-sqm-l-sky-quality-meter.html . Before I used the stars in UMi, but I gradually stopped as there is some light pollution towards North from the location where I observe and I generally observe at Zenith-East (which is towards the countryside). The SQM-L returns very sensitive measurements on the portion of sky you are interested.

[jetstream]

Thats it I"M done,after reading these reports my dob is out! Are you sure you saw these?

 

                                                          

 

Great report Piero! I couldn't help myself oh no my fonts got small?

 

There we go the fonts are are back. Whats next? Will you be reporting splits tighter than your scope can resolve?

                                                        

                                                 

[Piero]

41 minutes ago, jetstream said:

Thats it I"M done,after reading these reports my dob is out! Are you sure you saw these?

                                                          

Great report Piero! I couldn't help myself oh no my fonts got small?

There we go the fonts are are back. Whats next? Will you be reporting splits tighter than your scope can resolve?                                                 

I'm sorry Gerry.   But don't worry too much. I will PM you my home address so you can get rid of your dob without difficulty. The 15" of course!  

Can I also borrow your skies too?? One week would be enough!   

[jetstream]

Oh no not the 15! I love the 15"!!

Seriously though Piero great observing, once the DSO bug hits it can take hold.Your right the eyes do get "educated" after extensive observing and observer experience has proven to add "magnitude gain" if you know what I mean.

Did you check out the Needle galaxy yet? One of my very favorites.

[Piero]

1 minute ago, jetstream said:

Oh no not the 15! I love the 15"!!

Seriously though Piero great observing, once the DSO bug hits it can take hold.Your right the eyes do get "educated" after extensive observing and observer experience has proven to add "magnitude gain" if you know what I mean.

Did you check out the Needle galaxy yet? One of my very favorites.

Mark ( @mdstuart ) and I discussed about this yesterday (in my ~ Part 1 ). I wanted to give it a go yesterday evening. It was supposed to be my last target but I lost position while in Coma Berenices and the cold defeated me before I re-started star hopping. (I know Gerry, the cold over here is a laugh compared to the temperatures over there, but my winter jacket + gloves are still in my previous house and the wind yesterday was biting over here). 

Not sure I'll come up with a Part 3 tomorrow, but that target is certainly on my list, as well as the following : 

- M102 (Dra), M49 M61 (Vir), M108 (UMa)

- M68 (Crv) and M83 (Hya) (more likely from Italy)

and my last Messier M74 when Pisces comes out again.

[jetstream]

Study it well now Piero and it will open up surprises down the road! I'm curious if you will the see the "pimple" (core) in your scope.... The Needle is on my "sky cruise" list before serious hunting, I love its features.

[Piero]

 Just found out this terrific shot of NGC 5465 (Needle Galaxy) by HST. Really impressive detail! 

Of course, not that we can see like this, but it's amazing that we can spot something that is actually this!

 

Source: ESA/Hubble & NASA - http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1228a/ 

[laudropb]

Lovely report yet again. Don't worry your reports will not put us Dob observers off. They will only inspire us to train our eyes better.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great report. Galaxy hunts can be so relaxing and exciting at the same time

Haven't had a good galaxy hunt in ages. When will this weather change?

[scarp15]

Another inspiring session Piero, cycle, scope, sharp eyes, dark sky, galaxies, SQM, perfect.