Good conditions, some spring galaxies & an unplanned M78 with a 127 Mak

[SuburbanMak]

After a day of mixed weather skies looked very clear Thursday 11/3 so headed out around 9pm to take advantage of a moonless night.

Walking in straight from bright lights seeing & transparency were looking good - double cluster & beehive were naked eye visible with direct vision and some Messier dustiness in Auriga with an averted view.  I had a vague plan to have a proper go at the Leo Triplet & had spent a bit of time on stellarium to plan how to star-hop in via Chertan & L73.  First though I North aligned SynScan on Sirius and Mars (the top 2 suggestions thrown up by the app) & slewed to the the Pleiades to check alignment, which was good. Couldn't resist having a look at the double cluster from there which was so crisp and deep, then via M34 also looking good, to M42 (of course). 

The Orion nebula was the best I've seen it yet, looking directly at the Trapezium I could see 5 stars & real cloudy swirls above and below, panning upward there was a hint of dust in the running man area, couldn't discern the running man shape, but haven't seen this much before. Moving on up, Sigma Orionis was such a perfect little system & I toyed with the idea of binning galaxy hunting altogether and going after some close Doubles - Sirius even looked quite steady. I resisted as dark adaption was by now starting to work, before leaving the area though I had a quick go at finding M79, a low-down globular in Lepus most of which constellation was just about visible merging into the LP above the centre of town to the South.  I keyed it into the GoTo & was surprised by a short slew to the E.  Looking in the eyepiece I saw...something, very faint, grey glow around two dim fuzzy stars with a hint of  dark lane between, not the expected Globular - checking again it turned out that I had entered M78 by mistake but there it was, a bonus nebula - not visually spectacular but nice to find & fascinating to look-up later.  I made a quick sketch to confirm and tried for M79, but no, far too low by now. 

I figured night vision was by now good enough to have a crack at the Leo Triplet and took a GoTo to Regulus & centred. I had manually added Chertan and 73 Leonis to the app and duly centred them to get the best possible local alignment.   Putting L73 in the top L of the field I should be able to pick up M66 bottom right. I couldn't be sure so moved in a pattern around & picked up a fuzz patch. Small adjustments gave me a field with two luminous patches to L & R with a star at the top, I couldn't work this out and they were faint enough to be on the borders of imagination. Everything passed behind a bank of thin cloud for a few moments and I used the time to sketch (incredibly roughly) what I had seen so far.  As the cloud cleared away it weirdly helped confirm that the two luminous patches were absolutely real & I gave them a bit more concentrated attention with averted vision. As I did so a third area top R of field made itself vaguely apparent. My expectation management on galaxies is now starting to get a bit more realistic so I let this one sit for a while and added its general position to my sketch. Still baffled by the field related to what I was sure was L73 I made as good a sketch as I could of both the EP & finder fields for later confirmation ( struggling with glasses on/off, red headtorch & not wanting to fire up the bright phone app as magnitude was so marginal).

I took a last long look and resolved to figure it out with the atlas & app back home. I later realised that what I had done is, after panning around, manage to confuse the star L73 with a fainter close by star (HD98388-apparently) and had absolutely been looking at all three galaxies in the Leo Triplet - the sketch, although crude, gave me no doubt that I had landed in the right spot this time, just the satisfaction was deferred until I was back inside - something I am fast learning goes with the territory of galaxy hunting with a small scope!

36 Million light years though, a new personal space-travel record

I moved on to other Leo Messier galaxies & took a quick look at M95 & M96 which I found relatively easily, a dim pair of headlights but no detail, then wandered across to Makarian's chain and marvelled at the sheer number of little fuzzy signatures that wouldn't resolve to points. Concentration was waning a bit by this stage so I decided to save trying to identify precisely what I was seeing to another night when I could be out later and see them higher out of the murk. 

I finished with the Mak back on M81 & 2 which looked bright by comparison and gave hints of some spiral & shading detail on this night of exceptional transparency - amazing crisp view with them both in the widest field the Mak can deliver (just over 1 degree with a 24mm Baader Hyperion fixed, 63x). 

As I packed up the scope the naked eye panorama was just fab and seemed after so much dim fuzzy concentration, incredibly bright. I finished with a 15 minute tour of open clusters with a pair of 10x50s that was really stunning. So many stars in the double cluster, the Alpha Perseii , Pleiades, Hyades & Orion's belt just gorgeous  whilst the Beehive lived up to its name like  a swarm of fireflies.  

Starting to enjoy galaxy hunting for its own sake but for sheer beauty the binoculars had it tonight. A great couple of hours that left my mind in time & space for a long while after I got back. 

M78: 

 

Leo Triplet: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Epick Crom]

Nice report! Galaxy hunting sure is a challenge, I will be searching the Leo area tonight for the triplet. Like the sketches and notes! Happy observing!

Joe

[Kon]

Excellent report and a very nice list of targets. The galaxies in Leo is an eye spectacle! I had the same feeling the other night, i was mesmerised in the plethora of galaxies and stopped taking notes what i was seeing, just admiring. Very nice drawings.

[SuburbanMak]

On 13/03/2021 at 11:47, Epick Crom said:

Nice report! Galaxy hunting sure is a challenge, I will be searching the Leo area tonight for the triplet. Like the sketches and notes! Happy observing!

Joe

Thank you! I was hoping to get out last night - Clear Outside & Met Office looked good, scope went in the garden to cool & only clouds...

[SuburbanMak]

On 13/03/2021 at 21:04, Kon said:

Excellent report and a very nice list of targets. The galaxies in Leo is an eye spectacle! I had the same feeling the other night, i was mesmerised in the plethora of galaxies and stopped taking notes what i was seeing, just admiring. Very nice drawings.

Thanks - I reckon there's a few weeks of observing to be had across Leo & Virgo just working out what I am actually seeing, find a rough sketch of the field really helpful later. I mean to go back with a plan, have a couple of regions to explore based on a central brighter (relatively) galaxy.  Probably just end up sitting back and drinking it all in again though...