More Virgo Galaxies

[David Levi]

I was back out in the Brecon Beacons last night. The weather forecast a 3 hour window between 9 and midnight however there was high hazy and patchy cloud until about 10pm and high hazy cloud continued to be a pain almost throughout the session.

The Leo I Group of galaxies was well placed to start the session. After spending some time with these I moved on to recap the galaxies in the upper half of the Virgo bowl that I had seen last Sunday night. I had remembered well how to navigate them and this time I tried to observe more detail including increasing the magnification from 58x to 125x. The higher magnification didn't bring out any more detail than I originally saw and I preferred the lower magnification views.

The aim of tonight's observing session was to move down to the bottom of the Virgo bowl and starting at the star Zaniah, I moved north to 16 Vir from where the galaxy M61 is just a bit further north. What struck me about this search was not the galaxy. It appeared much like any other fuzzy of similar magnitude in an 8" telescope but the double star 17 Vir. It's a really attractive double with a white/yellow primary and a faint dull (perhaps brown?) secondary star. Well worth a visit and an easy split at 58x magnification (21" separation).

I then star hopped north east to the galaxies M49, NGC 4535 and NGC 4526. These three galaxies are very close to a small pattern of magnitude 6 stars and the interspersing of the galaxies with the stars provides a pleasing view.

As clouds crept in from the south I had a quick look at M13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. At 200x magnification it was a magnificent object with its mix of individual stars and fuzzy core almost filling the eyepiece.

After the rushed panic of last Sunday night (the poor weather bringing on the panic with the thought of perhaps missing another galaxy season) this was a far more relaxing session.

 

[wookie1965]

Great report I was going to try but there was medium and high cloud could only see the bright stars could not even see Cassiopeia or Leo so as per did not set up. 

[domstar]

Great report (again). I was doing similar (again). I just can't think of anything better than that area of sky.