Galaxy Hunting in the Suburbs

[Littleguy80]

Last night I decided to see how many galaxies I could observe from my back garden. I took two SQM reading using the Dark Sky iPhone app. First reading at the zenith 19.96, better than I was expecting. The second reading was in the direction of Ursa Major. 18.86, which was worse that I expected. I'd guess the truth is somewhere in middle. I was using my 10" dob and my APM/Lunt 100 degree eyepieces (20mm, 13mm and 9mm). The hunt went as follows:

Mizar - Used this nice double to check alignment of finders

M81/M82 - Nice bright pair to start with while my eyes became dark adapted. As they were high up, the sky quality was close to it's best

Leo Triplet - M65 and M66 were easier spots. NGC3628 was drawn out with a bit more magnification, becoming clearer with averted vision

M105/NGC 3384 - My first viewing of these this winter. Despite being lower down these were again easy observations

M95/M96 - M95 was a little fainter but still comfortably seen with the 20mm APM

NGC 2903 - I really like this galaxy in Leo. Feels just as bright as the Messiers

M97/M108 - I think of M108 as being a tougher target from home. The lovely Owl Nebula was found first and was bright, even without a filter. M108 was found more easily expected and accompanied M97 very nicely through the APM 20mm

M109 - Similar to M108 by proving less of a challenge than expected. Sky position was in it's favour, of course

NGC4096 - Listed at Mag 10.39 in SkySafari. It took averted vision and the 9mm to get the initial observation. After that I could also pick it up in the 20mm with averted vision

M51 - A much more ghostly appearance than the lovely spiral structure seen at my dark site but still a comfortable direction vision observation

M101 - With my 130mm scope this was my nemesis from home. With the 10" dob it's a relatively easy spot but again lacking the structure that is revealed with dark, transparent skies

NGC 5484 - I spotted this on SkySafari, which lists it at mag 10.95. The 9mm was able to draw this out but I felt close to the limit here. The magnitude figures must be taken with a pinch of salt as surface brightness is the true indicator or how bright an object will appear

M63 - The Sunflower galaxy always pleases. I remember seeing this last winter in the dob and being surprised at it's brightness

NGC 5033/NGC 5005 - Individually they both responded better to higher mags but could be enjoyed as pair in the 20mm 

M94 - Very easy spot and a really enjoyable galaxy. A real favourite, even from home

Cor Caroli - Brief break from the galaxies to admire this double

NGC4490/NGC 4485 - The Coocon was bright but NGC 4485 took more concentration. After spending some time with the 9mm and repeating observations, I was eventually satisfied that I'd seen it

NGC 4449 - This was an interesting looking galaxy and one that I'd like to study from darker skies

La Superba - I could resist a trip over to this red giant which added a lovely splash of colour to the evening.

I'd now been observing for about an hour and a half and took a brief break at this point. On returning to the dob, I found conditions had worsened a bit with high level cloud making everything a bit hazy. A few more observations were made though:

NGC 4631 - The Whale galaxy was to be the last galaxy of the evening. It's small companion was out of reach with the worsening conditions

M3 - Lots of lovely granulation with the 9mm. Great to see this glob again

Izar - Finished with a nice double. The 5mm BGO was allowed to joined the party, giving a nice split of this fantastic double. I love the little blue secondary

My final galaxy count was 25 in under 2 hours of observing plus some other nice objects along the way. If conditions had held then I still had the galaxy treasure trove that is Virgo to explore. Whilst this was not a session for enjoying subtle details in the galaxies observed, it just goes to show that even under suburban skies there's an awful lot to be seen. Happy hunting!

 

[Davesellars]

Wow, that's pretty productive for 2 hours!  Sounds like you had a nice transparent sky to work with.  Thanks for the great report.

[Eastman]

That's a impressive number of objects Neil, galaxy season is on. 

[bish]

Impressive haul in a 2 hour session!

[Shaun_the_Sheep]

Nice report. Thanks for sharing. 

[andrew63]

After reading this, I've just downloaded the Dark Sky iPhone app so will check it out tonight - thanks for the info. 

 

andrew

[dannybgoode]

Nice report. I’ll have to try the app you mention and give some of these a whirl. Nothing beats seeing the smudge of a galaxy and letting the mind try and comprehend what the eye is seeing

[andrew63]

Just tried the app out, pointed at Auriga area and got 19.21 in average conditions for here, slight haze - will try on a darker night.

 

andrew

[Littleguy80]

1 minute ago, andrew63 said:

Just tried the app out, pointed at Auriga area and got 19.21 in average conditions for here, slight haze - will try on a darker night.

 

andrew

How does that compare to the figures in clear outside or the light pollution map site? I think my skies are supposed to be about 19.6.

[andrew63]

Clear outside is given 19.99 -  I think it could be over 20 here on a good night.  19.39 now after some fine rain.

andrew