M74 - The Phantom Indeed a tricky object.

[Pondus]

Last year I ended up with a total of six -6- stargazing sessions. A very poor stargazing year for me.

But out of those few sessions of 2017 I certainly do remember my first view of Messier 101, the pinwheel galaxy.
No averted vision was needed to see nice details of this Galaxy,  including spiralarms  featuring several brighter regions.
I did not expect to see this level of detail from a target with such low surface brightness.
Not from my garden anyways. M101 became my favorite object observed in 2017.

A truly amazing galaxy.

 

2018 has started pretty well, with 4 sessions already, and after spending time revisiting the usual objects,
I decided to go for another of the 'tougher' Messier objects, the infamous phantom galaxy M74.
It certainly couldnt be that more difficult to find than M101, could it?

 

Well...

 

59N
January 6. 20.00 CET
8"dob, ES20mm 100 (60x)

 

With pretty good transparency (both the doublecluster and Andromeda visible naked eye), I regarded the conditions to be well above average.

I didnt bother to bring with me any other eyepiece than the low power ES20mm for this galaxy hunt.

With well darkadapted eyes I targeted the clearly visible Kullat Nunu (Eta Piscium) with the telrad.
With Kullat Nunu in the outer fov, I knew M74 would be within reach for the 100 degree eyepiece in use.
I moved the scope approx 1,5 degrees northeast of the target star and overconfidently expected to see a faint fuzzy well within the fov.

 

But I saw nothing.
Apart from some almost lined up faint stars, there was nothing but darkness, or more correctly, darkish grey deep space.
There was simply nothing there to see.

 

Some years ago I spend almost an hour intensly looking for the crab nebula, before I realized I was looking for it on the wrong side of Zeta Tauri.
Was I looking at the wrong place again? I was pretty sure I wasnt.

 

After staring at nothingness for awhile I broke up from the current position of the sky,and by use of the Telrad, moved the scope about 15 degrees north
to the point were I expected M33 to be. There, well within the fov was this, quite featureless, blob M33. I`d bet I could tease out some details from this one given a little patience.
Ok, knowing M33 was quite easily visible, M74 should be within reach? I really wanted to find the Phantom this night.

I went back to Kullat Nunu, found the same faint stars, along with the empty space surrounding them. Confident I was looking at the right place,
I wouldnt give up on the Phantom just yet. I searched the spacious fov for the galaxy, for maybe 15mins.

 

There! 
While moving the scope to keep up with the target, I detected something in the lower end of the fov. But once I looked directly at it it disappeared.
I repeated the ever so gently sweeping and most certainly there was a faint patch, just above this line of stars I`ve been looking at from the start.

The object was only visible using averted vision while gently moving the scope. Once I stopped moving the scope, this faint patch disappeared,
I could detect the brighter core of the galaxy, but no spiral arms was visible to my eyes.
I finally managed to hold on to the galaxy without moving the Scope.

 

So, with averted vision and a little bit of patience, I definitely bagged the phantom galaxy M74 from my own back yard.
It was nowhere near the views I had of M101, and I must say a very difficult target, when observed from a small town semidark sky.
I found the phantom a whole lot more difficult to see, than say M1 and M33. And M51 shines up like a neonlight in the dark compared to M74.

 

Charles Messier (and in this case Pierre Méchain) most certainly needed very dark skies finding these objects.
But even  the darkest sky  would have gotten them nowhere,  if it wasnt for their obviously very keen eyes.

 

Thanks for Reading.

 

Rune

[Doc]

It is a very tricky messier to find so well done.

As you have found out sweeping the area sometimes shows a mottled area where the object is. Tapping the telescope also has a similar affect and the object shows itself. And of course averted vision also helps. 

[jooli_ash]

Also really struggling with this one, despite numerous attempts now. What exactly am I looking for - is it a large diffuse blob like the Triangulum, or a smaller patch?

Had to go to a dark site to see M101 but have seen most of the other messier objects from the back garden apart from the very southern ones.

Cheers,

Julian

[Littleguy80]

Good work! It’s a fantastic feeling when you finally see a target like that! It took me a long time to see M101!

[Stu]

Nice report, it certainly is a tricky so and so!

One comment/question. You said you only took the 20mm eyepiece which gives you 3.3mm exit pupil. There is an argument that a 2mm exit pupil is optimal for DSO observing as it maximizes contrast.

It would be an interesting experiment to see whether upping the mag to a 12mm would make the object pop into view a little more easily once you had nailed the position with the 20mm.

[NGC 1502]

Fully agree that M74 is tough. Never seen it from my backyard in SE Essex using my 10” Dob. The location next to Eta Pisces makes it simple to point a scope at it, but seeing it is another matter entirely. But when on holiday in the Peak District bagged it with no problem using a 6” F4 travel scope. No detail, just a fuzzy patch, but satisfying none the less.

Enjoyed the opening post report.

Ed.

[Pondus]

On ‎20‎.‎01‎.‎2018 at 20:26, Stu said:

Nice report, it certainly is a tricky so and so!

One comment/question. You said you only took the 20mm eyepiece which gives you 3.3mm exit pupil. There is an argument that a 2mm exit pupil is optimal for DSO observing as it maximizes contrast.

It would be an interesting experiment to see whether upping the mag to a 12mm would make the object pop into view a little more easily once you had nailed the position with the 20mm.

(a bit late) Thank you for the advice . I do have the Docter 12.5mm (excellent eyepiece!) which would give me ~2mm exit pupil (and the Hyperion zoom also have a decent fov at 12mm).

 

Rune

[mapstar]

M74 is a tough one although I have seen it quite a few times from dark sites it is virtually impossible from urban skies. I have seen detail in it too several times.

The phantom is an apt moniker.

The skies that Messier and méchain had must've been brilliant without all the light pollution we have to endure today.

 

 

[leibek]

Hi

Creepy name phontom galaxy

Im gonna look for for in the MMessier

Objects mysterious galaxy.

Thanks