Globular Comparison

[David Levi]

I had a lovely session last night out in the Brecon Beacons. The transparency wasn't brilliant but I've come to expect that recently. There always seems to be some sort of high level haze or passing thin clouds. The Milky Way was visible but not particularly distinct low in the sky.  I was using my 8" reflector.

As it was still rather light at 11pm, I decided to start with some bright targets and although it was in the west I had some nice views of the open clusters in Auriga M36, M37 and M38. 

I had a quick look at the Ring Nebula, M57, in Lyra. Very bright and as always benefitting from flicking the eye between direct and averted vision.

In the constellation of Hercules, M13 was looking fantastic at 200x magnification and this led to a bright globular cluster feast. All at 200x, I then observed M92 also in Hercules, M3 in Canes Venatici and M5 in Serpens Caput.

I've been tempted by ever more challenging targets as I've become a more experienced observer and I think that I may have neglected some of these bright globular clusters. I was completely wowed by them especially M5 (again). Better than M13? Possibly. It has a more pleasing distribution of well defined stars.

Not that I didn't then go for some difficult targets. The globular cluster M68 in Hydra was a faint grey smudge, but fairly large. Even fainter was the galaxy M83, again in Hydra. I was wiggling the controls and using averted vision to see this galaxy. It was at it's meridian when I spotted it having failed to do so earlier in the session.

An observing buddy had their 12" dob out and I observed the spiral arms in the Ursa Major galaxies, M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy and M101. I did try to look at them with my telescope, for comparison purposes, but they were too vertical for my equatorial mount. This was one of the highlights of the session having never seen any of this detail in them before.

I couldn't resist taking in the Leo Triplet, all in the same field of view. This seems to attract me in every observing session in the Spring.

I had a good look at the northern galaxies in the Virgo cluster. Starting at Vindemiatrix, I galaxy hopped to Markarian's Chain. Observing M60, M59, M58, M89, M90, M91, M88, back down to M87 (still couldn't see the black hole), before moving across to the bottom of Markarian's chain, M86 and M84 with the Eyes just to the east of M86 and the other faint galaxies trailing northwards from there. I took in broad views of of these galaxies at 42x magnification.

A much better session than earlier in the week when dew started to form after about an hour. Last night there was no condensation in three and half hours.

[niallk]

Great report!  Visited some of the same targets last night too I agree - there are several globs well up there with M13: just wonderful objects to see with your own eyes.

As Richard Feynman said of globular clusters: "If you can't see gravitation acting here, you have no soul!"