A handful of galaxies

[Davesellars]

Well, it turned out the forecast was correct and it cleared around 1am.  I'd had a couple of hours sleep so packed my stuff and schlepped my way to my observation site.  It was perfectly clear - the transparency looked incredible and immediately I got direct vision mag 5 stars before dark adaption.  I think it was around mag 5.2 to 5.3 direct vision conditions in the end.

I plowed directly in to Virgo for hit on the H400. Although Virgo had started to get a little low now to be ideal but needs must...

#1 NGC 4698  Spiral Galaxy in Virgo (mag 10.56) - Faint glimmer of an oval between two bright stars

#2 NGC 4596 Spiral Galaxy in Virgo (mag 10.35) - Bright galaxy with distinct core showing.

#3 NGC 4508 (H2) Spiral Galaxy in Virgo - Small but easy direct vision oval shape.

#4 NGC 4281 Spiral Galaxy in Virgo (mag 11.14) - Faint and small with no discernible brighter core.

#5 NGC 4560 Spiral Galaxy in Virgo (mag 9.59) - Easy obvious spiral.  Bright core with some extension.

#6 NGC 4570 Spiral Galaxy in Virgo (mag 10.77) - Thin, small sliver of a galaxy with core brightening considerably in the centre.

#7 NGC 4237 Spiral Galaxy in Virgo (mag 11.77) - Very faint with averted vision being required to really hold it in vision

#8 NGC 4270 (H2) Spiral Galaxy in Virgo (mag 12.07) - faint but held direct vision easily enough.  small oblong patch without discernible brighter core.

#9 NGC 4261 Elliptical Galaxy in Virgo (mag 10.18) - Large with central core showing distinctly and decent extension from the core.

#10 NGC 4535 Spiral Galaxy in Virgo (mag 9.93) - Tough face on.  Decent size showing but with not much obvious brightness towards the centre.  I think this has quite low surface brightness.  Averted vision brought it out considerably and believe I was seeing the majority of the spiral galaxy and not just the core

#11 M49 - Elliptical Galaxy in Virgo (mag 8.39) - Very bright centre and considerable glow around the centre.

#12 NGC 4365 Elliptical Galaxy in Virgo (mag 9.53) - Medium size fuzz patch and round.  Fairly bright.

Virgo was then starting to get a little bit too low for comfort.  I thought about heading a bit further up to Coma but I wanted to check out M51 with this scope and the transparecny seemingly excellent.

#13 M51 Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici - I moved quickly from the 24mm Panoptic to the 10mm Delos (150x) and then had to pick my jaw up from the ground.  Spirals....  lovely spirals.  Easily visible with great detail and patches of brightening within them.  The inner cores or both galaxies were large and diffuse  NGC 5195 showed an extensive core and the inner spiral very clear banking round to the bridge as was the most outer spiral of M51 which was very faint in comparison with the inner spirals of M51 however they were clearly seen.  I put in the 6mm Delos for 250x and this showed yet more of the fainter detail although the bright spirals had faded but still in the background, I believe the brightened patches within the spirals were now showing clearer  The entire view seemed full with "features".   I spent a good amount of time studying M51 and then moved on to M101.

#14 M101 Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major - I landed directly on this with the finder and 24mm Panoptic showed the galaxy easily with a mere hint of the spirals.   Again, the Delos 10mm showed the galaxy detail.  Needing rather more concentration than M51 the spirals kind of filled the view albeit very faintm  Many obvious bright patches within the spirals popped out and kind of helped just follow the direction of each of the spiral arms.  The core is faint.  Only a touch brighter than the arms themselves.  Really nice to see this object a bit more properly rather than just a very vague fuzzy patch as I'd seen it before.

I had a quick look at Saturn which was fine at 170x although the seeing that low down meant more spaces of waviness than steadiness in the image.  Still it was nice to see and a few of its moons visible.

I finished up on the Double Cluster with the 24mm Panoptic which showed wonderfully with great colour rendition and perfectly sharp stars.  However the view suddenly went a bit off and saw that some fine clouds had drifted across it.  Worse was the big wall of clouds which was closing in fast.   So that was it for the evening.  It was 3.45 approx and there was a hint of it getting slightly light already.

[nightfisher]

Nice report and plenty bagged, was this with dob or 120ED  i am rather underwhelmed with my 120 on deep sky stuff

[cloudsweeper]

Great session, Dave, and a fine account!

Doug.

[Stu]

Dave, cracking report. I would say that counts as more than a handful!!

I enjoyed the read, great descriptions. M51 sounds a treat!  

[Stu]

49 minutes ago, nightfisher said:

Nice report and plenty bagged, was this with dob or 120ED  i am rather underwhelmed with my 120 on deep sky stuff

Jules, the 120ED is never going to be the best DSO scope compared with larger aperture, but then you bought it largely for lunar imaging and observing? One for another thread, not Dave's though I think.

[estwing]

great haul there Dave...a list that should be repeated under dark skies to compere notes. Glad you got out before the summer glow kills everything...clear skies

1 hour ago, nightfisher said:

Nice report and plenty bagged, was this with dob or 120ED  i am rather underwhelmed with my 120 on deep sky stuff

Teach you to look through a big dob!... TBH mate you NEED a 10" dob.

[mapstar]

Nice report. Those galaxy spirals are really something else.

Under clear, dark, transparent skies they are breath taking and memorable and sit atop my all time views. 

1 hour ago, nightfisher said:

Nice report and plenty bagged, was this with dob or 120ED  i am rather underwhelmed with my 120 on deep sky stuff

DSO's wasn't your intention when you bought the scope Jules. I'd like to know how it performs on your intended target. It will excel I should imagine 

[Paul73]

Yep. I don't think that I have ever pointed my ED120 at any faint DSO. That wiould be like playing cricket with a tennis racquet!

Extended targets such as M33, Veil, NA Nebula should show well with the right filters.

Back to the thread. Nice writing About a nice session. Whilst walking home from my birthday dinner last night, I briefly considered getting a scope out. But as I had to close one eye to get the right number of stars in Ursa Major, I thought that playing with expensive optics would probably end badly.??

Paul

[John]

Great report Dave and a super haul of deep sky objects

Sessions like you have just had are exactly why I own a 12" dob. I love my fracs but for delving deep there is no substitute for aperture even from my moderately light polluted back yard !

 

 

[Alan White]

Dave

Sounds like a great session, I have to admire those of you who get back up to observe, sadly I am a before midnight type of astronomer and thus miss some good seeing and sights.

I am getting the slight urge to add a dob to the mix one day though.

[nightfisher]

Can we keep on topic for the op, I should not have made ref to the ED

[Mark at Beaufort]

Fabulous session Dave and certainly the 12" Dob has done the job. I have enjoyed going through the Herschel 400 especially Leo and Virgo.

[Davesellars]

Thanks for the great comments!

Jules, it was with the 12" dob.  I have had absolutely awesome sessions with my refractors (both 120mm) on DSOs but galaxies are not their forte for obvious reasons.  I had an 8" SCT before the dob and can tell you that even 8" is not enough unless your skies I guess are considerably darker.  Going to 12" is like suddenly going HD tv.

Dark (enough) skies are key as mentioned before.  However, really great transparency makes even more of a difference.  Nights like last night seem to be rare like nights of excellent seeing but what a difference it can make to faint DSOs in extracting the detail.

its definitely worth the effort getting up after a few hours sleep to view in the morning .  The skies are generally darker and transparency normally better than early evening in my experience.  Takes a bit of motivation to get yourself up from slumber at such a time though!