Galaxies in Virgo - 5846 group

[Nyctimene]

Last night, I observed (again) this nice galaxy group in the easternmost part of Virgo with the 8" f/4 traveldob. Rather good conditions at 01.15 CEST: NELM at 5.8; SQM-L 21,27. After a little warming up with the globular M 5, I took 110 Vir as a guide star (easy to recognize by a close pair of 10mag stars 4 arc min SE) to 5838. This galaxy (10,9 mag) appeared as a bright spindle (4:1) with NNE-SSW orientation and a conspicuous stellar nucleus. 5846  30 arc min SE was bright, round with a brighter central region. The companion 5846 A could not be spotted (both together form, observed in the 18", a "mini-M 51" constellation)  Close to the east was 5850, fainter, round, but still directly visible. To the west, the chain was completed by the small and fainter (12,5 mag) 5839 and 5845. 5831 was directly visible, but faint, diffuse. I finished with the 10,5 mag 5813, a bright, round galaxy that is nicely embedded in a triangle of 11mag stars.

Saturn was rising at 02.30, but very low in bad seeing, the Cassini division could be glimpsed just for seconds. All observations were made with the Baader Zoom 8-24 mm, mostly at mag 100x. My new Astrogloves proved to be very useful in the cold spring night. Two satisfying hours; and so to bed.

Thanks for reading

Stephan

[Pondus]

Very interesting report, never observed any of these galaxies  in M5's neighbourhood.

Galaxy season over up here now, but hopefully I can get a glimpse of Saturn no matter how poor the view will be from 59N...

Thank you for sharing Your report Stephan.

 

Rune

[mdstuart]

Great report. Lovely galaxy group.

MarkMark

[mapstar]

Nice report well worth looking up