The Lion and the Virgin

[Zermelo]

Last night was galaxy night.

With the moon out of the way and some clear stuff forecast, I'd dumped an ambitious list of all-new potential targets into SkySafari, mostly galaxies. The wind was gusting so strongly during setup that I nearly came in, but it did start to settle down after a while. The mount's goto was having a "moment", so it looked like it would be down to me, my RACI, and a copy of Turn Left at Orion.

While it was still getting dark, I thought I'd have another shot at kappa Leonis, a 2.2" double with a difference of over five magnitudes that had defeated my six-inch more than once already. No luck this time, either. Leo was now quite high though, so I turned instead to a couple of galaxies, M95 and M96, that I'd not attempted before. A few minutes with the finder and 18mm eyepiece, and I found M95. If I'd not seen galaxies before, I would certainly have passed over it: a very faint smudge, though the nucleus was just visible as a point. M96 was slightly more obvious, but not much. But two more ticked off the Messier list.

I could now make out Virgo beneath Leo, although Spica was still behind a house. First stop was Porrima, a lovely equal double at 3.1". Not observed before, and my BST barlowed with a Celestron Omni at 190x could only elongate it. I switched in a Baader Classic Q to take it to 210x and got a clean split, quite steady.

The main course was a list of galaxies in Virgo. This was all new to me, and I'd intended to follow the fullsome instructions in Turn Left. But I seemed to go wrong almost immediately after Vindemiatrix, so I went off piste instead and star hopped to whichever ones on the list seemed most obvious. M59 was located first, very indistinct in the widefield and averted vision required. M60 was similar when I found it next, so I switched up to 94x, with an improvement in contrast and a starlike nucleus. A similar story with NGC4526, which took some finding and a few false starts, and beyond it, M49. Just as the count was starting to rack up, a bank of low cloud drifted across the view. I looked up, and virtually the whole sky was covered. Markarian's Chain will have to wait for another night, but I'll happily take a session with six new galaxies and a new double.

[Kon]

Excellent report. The galaxies in Virgo are really mesmerising. Markarian's Chain is a spectacle, especially if you have not seen it before.

[PrairieStarGazer]

Nice report. Whets my appetite for some galaxy hunting in Virgo/Coma this spring but I haven't had a good opportunity yet.

[Orange Smartie]

Thanks for sharing.  I only heard about Porrima yesterday (on here) and thought I'd give it a go tonight.  I thought I had successfully split it at 150x, but maybe I was kidding myself!  Was your seeing a bit unsteady when you attempted it?  I was using a BST starguider 25mm on a 150p Heritage dob.

Pete

[Zermelo]

10 hours ago, Orange Smartie said:

Thanks for sharing.  I only heard about Porrima yesterday (on here) and thought I'd give it a go tonight.  I thought I had successfully split it at 150x, but maybe I was kidding myself!  Was your seeing a bit unsteady when you attempted it?  I was using a BST starguider 25mm on a 150p Heritage dob.

Pete

I was using a BST 8mm on Porrima, initially barlowed with a Celestron Omni 2x (which failed), and then with a Baader Classic Q 2.25x (which effected the split).

Conditions seemed to change quite a bit during the evening. At the start it was gusting a lot at ground level and seeing wasn't great, but it settled down after an hour or so. On the day, MeteoBlue was rating its Seeing Index 1 as 4 (good) and Seeing Index 2 as 2 (not good), with jet stream increasing from 12m/s to 17m/s over the session. Metcheck was giving Astroindex 8, Transparency 8 and Pickering 8, all good. When I viewed Porrima, it seemed pretty steady at that magnification.

I decided against going out last night, one reason being that the observing predictions here were poor (MeteoBlue 3, 1, 46m/s,  Metcheck 0, 8, 3) plus a forecast of freezing temperatures and likely dew. So possibly your conditions were worse than mine were on Friday.  I did go out again on Monday, though, and bagged ten more new galaxies 😀

[Orange Smartie]

2 hours ago, Zermelo said:

I was using a BST 8mm on Porrima, initially barlowed with a Celestron Omni 2x (which failed), and then with a Baader Classic Q 2.25x (which effected the split).

Conditions seemed to change quite a bit during the evening. At the start it was gusting a lot at ground level and seeing wasn't great, but it settled down after an hour or so. On the day, MeteoBlue was rating its Seeing Index 1 as 4 (good) and Seeing Index 2 as 2 (not good), with jet stream increasing from 12m/s to 17m/s over the session. Metcheck was giving Astroindex 8, Transparency 8 and Pickering 8, all good. When I viewed Porrima, it seemed pretty steady at that magnification.

I decided against going out last night, one reason being that the observing predictions here were poor (MeteoBlue 3, 1, 46m/s,  Metcheck 0, 8, 3) plus a forecast of freezing temperatures and likely dew. So possibly your conditions were worse than mine were on Friday.  I did go out again on Monday, though, and bagged ten more new galaxies 😀

Sorry, don't know why I said I was using a 25mm eyepiece. It was a 5mm, giving me 150x. I don't normally refer to those resources to check the seeing, but next time I'll look up what the seeing is to get a feel for how good it should be.