Galaxies with ST80

[mark81]

after a long hard week, with aching bones and wanting sleep, at 11 last night I thought, for some reason, it would be advisable to take a small telescope out into the cold and try and spot some galaxies. A thin slither of moon shone away near Leo and the not quite dark blue of the sky didn't fill me with much hope.

I started finding leo52 which I couldn't see with the naked eye and only have a red dot finder but was lucky with my guess. Nudging down slightly and to my joy, there was m105, m95 and m96. I say joy, not because they were glorious galaxies or even faint fuzzies but just three brightish stars - there was no fist pumping.

I then moved to Denebola and the tiredness came to the surface when trying to find comma6 through the diagonal but as with a diagonal left was right and front was back which threw me off course a bit but eventually saw m98 and 99- this time as small grey pixels.

I continued on across to Vindemiatrix seeing hundreds of the faintest of faint grey pixels and rather than try to identify any I thought I would just enjoy the amazing notion that they were all distant galaxies. Amazing.

I realise this is not the most exciting report ever, but I have a bad back and my neck hurts so someone else has to suffer just a little bit...

[happy-kat]

Nice report sounds a relaxing wander around the sky.

[MarsG76]

Thats dedication.. out in the cold with a bad back...

 

[cotterless45]

Neat ! Got out there , but very light sky. Jupiter settled eventually at x160.

More than those living a few doors up. Festivities went on past midnight. 2 of the biggest security lights. Certain that landing planes at East Midlands started to circle. Cannot describe the noise , but I'd have been embarrassed to have most guests visit, roll on long cold winter nights,

Nick.