Peace, solitude, and pleasure

[Saganite]

 

Wednesday 30th/ Thursday 31st January 2019

For the second time in four days I used my 12" OOVX, relishing the dark sky and the hunt for dim grey smudges,and as many Messier objects as I could find , to mark off on my chart, but first up had to be the beautiful M42 in Orion, so into the focuser went the 26mm T5 and apart from the Meade 8.8 4k series which showed a very solid E&F in the Trapezium, only one other eyepiece was used over the 5 hour session. That eyepiece was my 48mm Brandon, itself a very fine ocular, which of course gave much greyer images, but had to be used when the T5 misted up, as it did several times during the night. This meant that I would switch to brighter objects such as clusters, when using it, and reserve the warming  26mm for  Galaxy hunting. I spent some time looking at M42, the 3D appearance of the great mass of nebulosity and its slight reddish glow, at least that is what I swear I could see. A quick split of  Rigel, a fair amount of time on M45 and its field of young white hot stars, with nebulosity, though I would not venture an opinion of its nature, and then to the main purpose of the session.

M35  GEMINI ( NGC 2168) A lovely open cluster, first discovered it is believed by Philippe Loys de Cheseaux  in 1745, but more famously  recorded by Charles Messier in 1764. I could see a dim haze by eye, and my bins soon confirmed its presence , but the dob revealed its true nature. Distance varies according to which source you use...2200 ly or 2800 LY. 

M36, M37, & M38  AURIGA.....Three lovely open clusters, I have seen many times, but always return to view them when the opportunity arises, and they certainly are a treat in binoculars.

NGC 869 & 884 ( Caldwell 14)  PERSEUS.... Who doesn't love this gorgeous double cluster ? Both clusters are significantly younger than the Pleiades, which also contains mostly hot Blue/white stars, though  884, the older of the two contains a handful of red supergiants, and are worth the effort to locate in a sea of  much hotter stars.

M67 CANCER.. The Pacman Cluster at around 5 billion years old is one of the most ancient clusters, and is quite bright in a 12" Dob, a lovely sight.

M44 CANCER.. Praesepe.. The Beehive...Easy naked eye open cluster from my rural area. Through a telescope it is a lovely sight, and I know of only one other person who, like me, can see the  Spaceshuttle in this one, though I am sure it can't be just two of us !

URSA MAJOR

M97, The Owl Nebula, seen many times before ,but this time I barely see the 'eyes', though the Nebula itself was good.

M108..Faint but visible with direct vision, I have on previous visits failed to see it at all when M97 was visible.

M81 & M82... I love to see these two so much I have incorporated one of them into my email address. Both clearly visible in the FOV of the T26.

M109.. Fairly dim and diffuse, but definitely there and visible with a bright core that looked like an out of focus star..

M101..The Pinwheel Galaxy.. Averted vision revealed the shape with some structure, though it has a fairly bight central core. 

CANES VENATICI

M51..  The Whirlpool  Galaxy ..Two lovely bright hubs and with averted vision shape and some structure to this Face on Spiral Galaxy

M106.. Quite bright fuzzy oval, very definitely worth a look, though I could not make out any spiral feature even with averted vision, but then " seeing " as always plays a part in what can be detected.

NGC 4490   The Cocoon Galaxy.. I was in uncharted territory for this one and I am not certain as I type this, that I have identified this correctly. The area of the sky seemed correct, however, a little research has revealed the Cocoon to have a small companion, easily seen apparently at 125x in a 12" to 14" instrument. I was viewing at 61x with my 26mm Nagler, and my scribbled note from the eyepiece, rather disparagingly says "fairly bright as little grey smudges go ", so I seemed a bit underwhelmed with this one. Not sure, will have to revisit.

NGC 4244 ? Another very dim object nearby , not sure.

M63 .. Sunflower Galaxy..  No mistaking this one, correct position, correct shape and with a nice bright oval core in a larger oval halo..beautiful.

M94.. The Croc's Eye Galaxy.. A neat circular and bright core with a diffuse oval halo. A colour image  or a very much larger Dob is needed I believe, to see why it is so called, but this is yet another Galaxy that I have not seen before.

M3 No doubts at all about this beauty ! big ,bright, and resolvable into stars. Gorgeous !

C 32.. The Whale Galaxy.. Stunning in its ability to live up to its name. A pale almost ghostly long  white apparition in a black ocean., and just to add to it, at exactly 1.32am a Satellite cut it in half !.. A must see.

COMA BERENICES

M53.. Another lovely Globular Cluster smaller and dimmer than M3, but still a joy to see.

VIRGO

Aware that time was marching on and Orion was almost gone below my fence, and that Virgo is an absolute 'goldmine' of celestial jewels, I decided I would take a quick bite and return another night for a real feast, so an easy one.....

M49.. A huge elliptical Galaxy thought to be 150,000 'ish  LY 's across,  viewed as a bright core in nice diffuse halo

LEO.. Finnish on a high, a good'un, my favourite, and the one I use the most on SGL's FOV calculator... The Leo Triplet

M65, M66, and NGC3628...Three in the FOV , just sublime. Seen many ,many, times, but just love them !

The only sound that I recall from 11.30 onwards was a Tawny Owl calling ,but very close, within 100 yards I would say, and another replying in the distance, but that added to the nights pleasure.

The time was now 2.35am and aware that I wanted to wake at 6am to see the conjunction of Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon, which I did , just to put 'the icing on the cake'

I covered the dob with a cycle cover and went to bed, very ,very happy.

 

[domstar]

What a wonderful night. Lovely targets too. I'm confined to my south facing balcony until it warms up a bit. Orion and friends are wonderful but you've whetted my appetite for some north facing galaxies (albeit with a smaller scope).

Great report.

[Astro Imp]

Wonderful report Steve, nice to observe new targets but the pull of the old favourites never lessens 

[Stu]

What a great night Steve, that scope is working well for you. Always nice to tour around our favourites, something I never tire of.

[Size9Hex]

Great session and great report. ? The cocoon is one of my favourite galaxies to return to in my 10". Your 12" should be even better of course. The dynamics of the two are easily seen, stretching and distorting each other, clearly lopsided, although it appears frozen in time through the eyepiece.

[Saganite]

19 hours ago, domstar said:

What a wonderful night. Lovely targets too. I'm confined to my south facing balcony until it warms up a bit. Orion and friends are wonderful but you've whetted my appetite for some north facing galaxies (albeit with a smaller scope).

Great report.

 

18 hours ago, Astro Imp said:

Wonderful report Steve, nice to observe new targets but the pull of the old favourites never lessens 

 

18 hours ago, Stu said:

What a great night Steve, that scope is working well for you. Always nice to tour around our favourites, something I never tire of.

 

26 minutes ago, Size9Hex said:

Great session and great report. ? The cocoon is one of my favourite galaxies to return to in my 10". Your 12" should be even better of course. The dynamics of the two are easily seen, stretching and distorting each other, clearly lopsided, although it appears frozen in time through the eyepiece.

Cheers guys. It was just great to be out under the stars with a telescope, peace and quiet. 

[Eastman]

On ‎01‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 15:01, Saganite said:

The Whale Galaxy.. Stunning in its ability to live up to its name.

Great report Steve, impressive list of objects. The Whale galaxy is beautiful indeed. Sure going to re-visit soon.

 

[Saganite]

2 hours ago, Eastman said:

Great report Steve, impressive list of objects. The Whale galaxy is beautiful indeed. Sure going to re-visit soon.

 

Thanks Gert. This was the first time I have seen this Galaxy, and I was genuinely stunned by its appearance.