Easter 2021 - Attempting Galaxies with an SP102

[MercianDabbler]

A mixed few evenings over the easter period...

Having had a couple of previous attempts at the Leo Triplet with uncertain results it was still on the list with M95 and 96 plus M86 in Virgo added after I watched the Sky at Night April guide on YouTube. Friday required a certain amount of faith with cloud cover during the early part of the evening but I decided to trust the forecast and set up anyway. The time available was pretty limited after waiting for clear skies. Saturday was more consistently clear. Both evenings had a similar lack of success - I could suspect M66 but there was no hint of M65 or the 'Hamburger'. I attempted M95 and 96 using the setting circles but found a fairly nondescript star field with no real clue where the galaxies should be. I decided to try some 'easier' targets in the form of M51 and M101 instead of M86. The star hop in both cases went fine but not a hint of either galaxy. I also tried sitting back in a chair and aiming the 10x50s at M81 which is my usual sanity check for sky conditions and equipment - not a hint of that either. There was a definite visible beam from the head torch when packing up so I had at least some optimism that transparency may not have been the best and another night may prove better.

Sunday was cloudy but Monday was forecast clear and cold with a Northerly wind so I decided to don some extra layers and have another go. I used the extended lack of darkness to re-jig my target list having checked the Messier lists for the constellations in the south and east parts of the sky and also checked the contrast index for each target, the main additions being M87 in Virgo in place of M86 and a couple of globular clusters.

Over the three nights I'd changed my setup somewhat. On Friday night I used the SP102 with the Rigel finder but found star hopping very difficult going straight from the Rigel to a 32mm Plossl with 1.55 degrees TFOV. For Saturday I piggy backed the ST80 using the bundled 45 degree prism and my Meade 26mm. I really found this combination made star hopping more certain with the view in the ST80 being a fair approximation to that shown in the tablet version of Stellarium and 3.42 degrees TFOV. I don't have any adjustable rings to mount the ST80 so the aim was a little off from the SP102 but not terrible. On Monday I spent some time during daylight with the scopes pointed at a neighbour's TV aerial to improve things. Lacking any adjusters I resorted to bits of 20 and 30 thou plastic sheet cut to fit as shims in between the dovetail and the ADM clamps. I used my Meade reticle eyepiece in the ST80 and a 6mm Starguider in the SP102 and was able to get the two pretty closely aligned. I kept them clamped together to avoid losing the alignment but once outside in the cold and dark the aim was well off in one direction. The main issue was that the focusser tube on the ST80 was moving all over the place but moving one shim from the rear to the front ADM clamp allowed me to arrive at a pretty good alignment. Tightening the focuser clamp screw stopped the wobble but made focussing too stiff. Another job to do!

First target on Monday was the Leo Triplet starting just after full darkness. As usual the star hop was very easy. One of the galaxies was pretty apparent straight away and I was confident that it was more then just a faint star. After checking the position against my screenshots from the PC version of Stellarium I concluded that this was M66. Having a closer look at the position of M65 I could see something there too but it was very indistinct. Next up was M95/96. I think I was in the right place for these but again the nondescript star field meant that I had no real confidence so with time being in short supply I moved on pretty quickly. M87 was next. For this one I lined up using the Rigel finder about 60% of the distance between Denebola and Vindemiatrix and tried to match the stars between Stellarium and the ST80. I very quickly alighted on two stars with a noticeable fuzzy blob below the upper one. Judging by the magnitude this seemed promising but I was not certain I was in the right spot. Having checked again in Stellarium I'm still putting this one down as a probable.

Next up was some easier fare starting with M3. Again I did a rough aim using the Rigel finder jusdging the distance from Arcturus and its neighbours and then using the ST80 and Stellarium together. I spotted a fuzzy blob on the ST80 pretty easily and switched over to the SP102 for a better view. Both tha Vixen 15mm SLV and the 9mm DeLite showed the cluster niceely but I find the focus more certain with the SLV. I used the same basic approach for M53 and quickly saw the attractive ribbon of stars above it in the ST80 but not the cluster itself. It showed up easily in the SP102 with the 15mm SLV and 9mm DeLite providing nice views again.

By now time was marching on well towards midnight and I really should have been packing up but stayed for a couple more targets. I'd put the Sombrero Galaxy M104 on the list because I've never seen it and fancied a crack at it. I could see the top of Corvus peeping over the buildings to the south so started from Algorab. The star hop from there was trouble free with the help of the two nearby distinct patterns which showed 3 stars apiece (there are actually more). I was delighted to find that I could make out M104. The view was hardly detailed but I could see its orientation and at least suspect the dust lane at times with AV.

The final target was a revisit to M51 which had been pushed to the back of the queue because I needed to swap sides on the SP mount. By now it was past midnight and M51 was very high indeed so reaching the eyepiece and the axis controls was quite a challenge. I knew my way to the location from previous evenings so that was no problem but the general awkwardness meant that I kept losing the spot by moving the scope in the wrong direction. I had several attempts and at least two of them showed something where M51 should be. At one point I could even suspect two blobs but the view was never clear. I decided to settle for that and pack up. Not a hint of mist in the head torch beam on this occasion.

All in all I was very happy with my results on Monday and pleased with the star hopping setup using the piggy backed ST80. Fixing the wobbly focusser and figuring out a better approach for fuzzy targets with nondescript star fields remain on the 'to do' list.

Edited April 6, 2021 by MercianDabbler
Sunday should say Monday

[MercianDabbler]

A postscript... Last night was clear (and pretty darned cold) once the snow showers had stopped so I set up again to clear up a few loose ends from Monday. The first was M94 which I had not had time to do on Monday. This was a pretty straightforward star hop from Cor Caroli. I think I could more or less see it in the ST80 and the SP102 showed it easily in the 15mm SLV and the 9mm DeLite.

On Monday I had been uncertain whether I'd found M87 or not so I wanted to revisit this with the help of some wider view (not ocular view) screenshots from the desktop version of Stellarium. I confirmed that the nearby almost equilateral triangle of stars was in the correct place so indeed it was M87. While in the area I tried sweeping up to M86 and friends. There was plenty of 'stuff' visible there but even with the help of the new screenshots I could not work out what was what. As far as I can see Stellarium shows very faint galaxies regardless of whether they are going to be do-able. All of these extra objects make it quite hard for me to relate the Stellarium picture of the M86 region to the view in the eyepiece.

My third and final mission was to put the DSLR onto the back of the SP102 and see if I could get a picture of M104. I managed 45 20 second frames at ISO3200 - 8 minutes of exposure time once selected down to 80% in DSS. This isnt a huge amount of exposure time but after stacking and some reasonably uncomplicated processing the result was quite pleasing considering the still fairly low altitude in my Bortle 6 sky.

[Nik271]

That's a pretty good image of the Sombrero! 

I get lost in the Virgo galaxy cluster too 😀

By the way m101 is way harder than m86 or m87. It's bright but much bigger in the sky so with low surface brightness disappears in light pollution. It's easier with binoculars, say 10x50 or larger.

 

 

[MercianDabbler]

5 hours ago, Nik271 said:

That's a pretty good image of the Sombrero! 

I get lost in the Virgo galaxy cluster too 😀

By the way m101 is way harder than m86 or m87. It's bright but much bigger in the sky so with low surface brightness disappears in light pollution. It's easier with binoculars, say 10x50 or larger.

 

 

Thanks. I'm quite pleased with the pic considering the limited exposure time (which was 12 minutes, not 8 as I said earlier), 4 inch aperture and background glow.

I'm glad it's not just me that finds it difficult to find my way around the Virgo galaxy area.

So far I've yet to see M101. I've tried my 10x50s from home with no luck. I think I also tried them wayyy back when out and about (remember that?) too but must have another go when I'm in a dark location. For the time being M101 will be off my list - I just don't think it's doable in my Bortle 6 sky at home.

[MercianDabbler]

I'm glad to see that other folks have been gettng plenty of cloud free time. I seem to have been less lucky with the clouds but have managed some further observing.

While there are still opportunities to see the Virgo galaxies I wanted to improve my navigation so that I could be more certain that any failures to see something was down to the capacity of my equipment and the sky conditions rather than just my failure to find the right spot in the sky. Having done some further Googling I found that it is possible to toggle the galaxy photos off in Stellarium. This needs a manual edit on the config file (C:\Users\andy\AppData\Roaming\Stellarium\config.ini on my Windows 10 system) to set flag_show_nebulae_background_button to true. This shows an extra button on the toolbar allowing the images to be toggled on and off. While there I also turned on flag_show_flip_buttons which allows the view to be flipped when not in ocular view. In the Stellarium app I also set the limiting magnitude for DSOs to be 10... I certainly cant see anything over 10 in the SP102 and things over 9 are challenging.

I'd also done a bit of a tune up on the ST80 focusser over the weekend. Having checked some YouTube videos I adjusted the two small Allen screws on top of the focusser and found a point where it wasnt wobbling and also wasnt too stiff.

Sunday 11th had a good forecast but saw a late start due to cloud. The Virgo galaxies were the main item on the agenda. It's not really worth going into detail because the same targets (and more) were visited with more time available on Wednesday night with broadly similar results.

Monday night was predicted to be clear by Clear Outside but the prediction worsened as the day went on. I waited until 9:30 before making a decision. There were a few small clouds around but looking to the North West I could see plenty more and predicted that they would roll in before I could get the SP102 set up. Instead I pulled out a folding chair and the 10x50s to have a crack at M51 and M101. I started at Mizar and a Starlink satellite streaked across the view. A few seconds after that... another one. I kept watching and eventually counted 45 or the little blighters on parallel tracks close to Mizar. Once that distraction had finished the cloud had worsened. I swung over to Leo and found another satellite heading from there towards Ursa Major. Soon after that had disappeared into cloud I saw a really bright one without the binoculars, again traversing Ursa Major, no doubt catching the sun because it suddenly appeared and then vanished again after covering less than the width of the main constellation. By now the clouds had completely won the day and the reflected LP made it almost like a full moon so I gave up and went indoors for a beer.

Tuesday night clouded in during the early evening and there was never any prospect of any observing time.

Wednesday night (14th April) was cloud free and predicted to remain so. I set up early, just after checking the classifieds on SGL and signing up for a used Celestron diagonal from @F15Rules

It wasnt properly dark when I was up and running but I spotted Orion peeping between my house and next door so decided to have a final visit before it vanishes. It wasn't ideal - to start with I could not find M42 because it was still just behind next door but after a few minutes it came into view. I could make out 3 stars in the trapezium and intermittently four and also discern some of the nebulosity. Hardly a spectacular visit but nice to see it again.

It still wasn't properly dark so while the scope was pointing that way I decided to visit M35 in Gemini. My first attempt was to star hop from Mars. Mars itself was pretty unspectacular and I was struggling to get to grips with the surrounding stars so instead I started from Alhena and managed a fairly straightforward star hop from there.

Next I needed to re-check the alignment between the ST80 and SP102. I swung around to Spica in preparation for the main course. Surprisingly I found that the best alignment was when I removed all of the shims from the ADM clamps. Maybe my focusser tune up has given me perfect alignment or more likely it's just not completely repeatable.

After the official start of full darkness I moved on to the galaxies. I started at Vindemiatrix and then hopped to the very recognisable 4 star group centered on rho Vir. From there I went NE to a 'T' shaped arrangement of stars which became the base for the remainder of the evening.

Near the westward tip of the 'T' is M58. This seemed trickier than my previous attempt but eventually I picked it up in the 9mm DeLite having failed to do more than suspect it in the 15mm SLV.

I tried to hop over to M60. I was confident that I was in the right spot but no joy so I moved on.

Back again to 'T' and then up to M89. I did not have much difficulty spotting this one (Sunday had been the same). From there it was a more tricky hop to M90. Unlike Sunday I was sure that I was in the right place. Like Sunday I could not spot M90.

Back again to 'T' and up to M87. My third visit this month and an easy spot. From there I was after M86 which had been the first Virgo galaxy that I'd tried unsuccessfully. There are no obvious stars to help with aiming and I could not even positively identify the Mag 7.5 star that Stellarium shows to the left of it (or right in the SP102)

There were plenty of faint objects visible, some of which are probably galactic nuclei and some of them stars but I really could not get my bearings even after several attempts and going back to sit in the chair and study my screen shots on the tablet more closely. In the end I hooked up the DSLR to the scope, went back to rho for focus and then resorted to some ISO 12800 photos so that I could try to get my bearings next day. I haven't yet checked them.

I had planned to finish with M104 but I had left it too late and it had gone behind a tree. Apart from that minor disappointment it was a most enjoyable session and I was packed up just before 1AM... plenty of sleep time before by 6AM alarm... not.

I've now downloaded more stars into Stellarium and am trying to tune the limiting mag to what I can see. At the moment 11 to 12 seems like the ballpark.

[MercianDabbler]

I've now had chance to get the pics off the camera and mess with them a bit. A mosaic of two frames, each with three 20 second subs at ISO 12800, 5 darks, no flats. It's horribly noisy and won't win any AP prizes but at least I can see M86 and a bunch of other stuff via the DSLR. I may have seen M86 at the eyepiece too but I could not tell which 'thing' was M86.

[wookie1965]

Wow brilliant

[MercianDabbler]

Last night was clear too so I decided that sleep was overrated and went out again. The plan was to clear up a few loose ends from Wednesday. The moon and clouds should guarantee that this was the last evening on this mission for the month.

First job was to check the ST80 alignment by pointing at Spica again. This time I found I needed 10 thou of shim to point the ST80 slightly further left so clearly the alignment does not stay put... even if I leave the two scopes clamped together between sessions. It's still pretty good though and I'm not motivated to spend money on guide scope rings.

It wasn't yet fully dark but the first target was M104 because I'd missed out on it during the previous evening. This was a not too difficult star hop from Spica. It just about showed up in the 15mm SLV and was better in the 9mm DeLite. I could not suspect the alignment on this occasion but the incomplete darkness probably did not help.

Next job was to find rho Vir again as before and then head down to M49 which I had only just spotted in Stellarium as a viable target. This was a straightforward hop and not difficult to spot in the 15mm SLV.

I'd also read of a nearby Supernova in UGC7513 on here. This was a very long shot but I armed myself with some Stellarium screenshots to see if I could find it. I couldn't do the star hop with any confidence - on this occasion there were just too many stars of a similar brightness and I kept losing my way. Time was limited so after a couple of tries I abandoned the attempt and moved on.

The next itch to scratch was M86 (again!). I'd copied the photo from the previous night onto the tablet in various versions, flipped and unflipped and with a couple of variations of brightness reduction. I went back to the triangle of mag 8ish stars near to M87 and up from there. Maybe the conditions were worse but I could not see much that I could really hang any navigation on, new photos or otherwise. Once again the 7.55 mag star shown by Stellarium was not obvious through my EP. Checking again today it's also not obvious on my photo, nor is it obvious on other photos. Is it a mistake in Stellarium maybe? Anyway... another attempt at M86 and another failure to find it in the EP.

The final task for the night was to attach the DSLR and grab more frames of M104 and see if it would improve the quality of my previous photo. I'd told myself to swap sides on the SP mount before starting - this would gain me a little more distance to the left of the nearby tree. Naturally I forgot when the time came. I got about 60 or so more 20 second light frames (I lost count) before M104 was definitely in the tree around midnight but I haven't checked them yet - the later ones may have been in the emerging outer foliage although the preview on the camera was still showing what looked like good images.

At various points through the session I checked the 4 stars in the square of Ursa Minor by naked eye as recommended by @John. The best I could do was 2 stars with a suspicion of the third on one occasion so by John's test the transparency was not good. I'll use this test again to see if some evenings are better but I'm not sure that Ursa Minor is particularly well defined on any evening under the LP in my garden.

Tonight I plan to remedy some of my sleep deficit

[SuburbanMak]

On 15/04/2021 at 13:49, MercianDabbler said:

I'm glad to see that other folks have been gettng plenty of cloud free time. I seem to have been less lucky with the clouds but have managed some further observing.

While there are still opportunities to see the Virgo galaxies I wanted to improve my navigation so that I could be more certain that any failures to see something was down to the capacity of my equipment and the sky conditions rather than just my failure to find the right spot in the sky. Having done some further Googling I found that it is possible to toggle the galaxy photos off in Stellarium. This needs a manual edit on the config file (C:\Users\andy\AppData\Roaming\Stellarium\config.ini on my Windows 10 system) to set flag_show_nebulae_background_button to true. This shows an extra button on the toolbar allowing the images to be toggled on and off. While there I also turned on flag_show_flip_buttons which allows the view to be flipped when not in ocular view. In the Stellarium app I also set the limiting magnitude for DSOs to be 10... I certainly cant see anything over 10 in the SP102 and things over 9 are challenging.

I'd also done a bit of a tune up on the ST80 focusser over the weekend. Having checked some YouTube videos I adjusted the two small Allen screws on top of the focusser and found a point where it wasnt wobbling and also wasnt too stiff.

Sunday 11th had a good forecast but saw a late start due to cloud. The Virgo galaxies were the main item on the agenda. It's not really worth going into detail because the same targets (and more) were visited with more time available on Wednesday night with broadly similar results.

Monday night was predicted to be clear by Clear Outside but the prediction worsened as the day went on. I waited until 9:30 before making a decision. There were a few small clouds around but looking to the North West I could see plenty more and predicted that they would roll in before I could get the SP102 set up. Instead I pulled out a folding chair and the 10x50s to have a crack at M51 and M101. I started at Mizar and a Starlink satellite streaked across the view. A few seconds after that... another one. I kept watching and eventually counted 45 or the little blighters on parallel tracks close to Mizar. Once that distraction had finished the cloud had worsened. I swung over to Leo and found another satellite heading from there towards Ursa Major. Soon after that had disappeared into cloud I saw a really bright one without the binoculars, again traversing Ursa Major, no doubt catching the sun because it suddenly appeared and then vanished again after covering less than the width of the main constellation. By now the clouds had completely won the day and the reflected LP made it almost like a full moon so I gave up and went indoors for a beer.

Tuesday night clouded in during the early evening and there was never any prospect of any observing time.

Wednesday night (14th April) was cloud free and predicted to remain so. I set up early, just after checking the classifieds on SGL and signing up for a used Celestron diagonal from @F15Rules

It wasnt properly dark when I was up and running but I spotted Orion peeping between my house and next door so decided to have a final visit before it vanishes. It wasn't ideal - to start with I could not find M42 because it was still just behind next door but after a few minutes it came into view. I could make out 3 stars in the trapezium and intermittently four and also discern some of the nebulosity. Hardly a spectacular visit but nice to see it again.

It still wasn't properly dark so while the scope was pointing that way I decided to visit M35 in Gemini. My first attempt was to star hop from Mars. Mars itself was pretty unspectacular and I was struggling to get to grips with the surrounding stars so instead I started from Alhena and managed a fairly straightforward star hop from there.

Next I needed to re-check the alignment between the ST80 and SP102. I swung around to Spica in preparation for the main course. Surprisingly I found that the best alignment was when I removed all of the shims from the ADM clamps. Maybe my focusser tune up has given me perfect alignment or more likely it's just not completely repeatable.

After the official start of full darkness I moved on to the galaxies. I started at Vindemiatrix and then hopped to the very recognisable 4 star group centered on rho Vir. From there I went NE to a 'T' shaped arrangement of stars which became the base for the remainder of the evening.

Near the westward tip of the 'T' is M58. This seemed trickier than my previous attempt but eventually I picked it up in the 9mm DeLite having failed to do more than suspect it in the 15mm SLV.

I tried to hop over to M60. I was confident that I was in the right spot but no joy so I moved on.

Back again to 'T' and then up to M89. I did not have much difficulty spotting this one (Sunday had been the same). From there it was a more tricky hop to M90. Unlike Sunday I was sure that I was in the right place. Like Sunday I could not spot M90.

Back again to 'T' and up to M87. My third visit this month and an easy spot. From there I was after M86 which had been the first Virgo galaxy that I'd tried unsuccessfully. There are no obvious stars to help with aiming and I could not even positively identify the Mag 7.5 star that Stellarium shows to the left of it (or right in the SP102)

There were plenty of faint objects visible, some of which are probably galactic nuclei and some of them stars but I really could not get my bearings even after several attempts and going back to sit in the chair and study my screen shots on the tablet more closely. In the end I hooked up the DSLR to the scope, went back to rho for focus and then resorted to some ISO 12800 photos so that I could try to get my bearings next day. I haven't yet checked them.

I had planned to finish with M104 but I had left it too late and it had gone behind a tree. Apart from that minor disappointment it was a most enjoyable session and I was packed up just before 1AM... plenty of sleep time before by 6AM alarm... not.

I've now downloaded more stars into Stellarium and am trying to tune the limiting mag to what I can see. At the moment 11 to 12 seems like the ballpark.

I found this incredibly useful tonight on a short ST80 recee trying to get some bearings in Virgo. Like you I’ve seen lots of “stuff” but found identification really tough (barring one very nice GoTo with the Mak a couple of weeks ago that landed me clean in M86/4 & NGC 4438 - an amazing field I won’t forget in a hurry!) 

SE From Vindemiatrix there’s a pronounced curved mini-Corona Borealis formation, then a little higher & round to south, the very clear 4-star “jet plane” asterism around Rho V. 

Having come back in and re-read your  post I am certain that next time I’ll be able to walk along this chain of asterisms to your “T” and move the Telrad-field-or-so up along the way to pick off some targets with more accuracy, rather than just thinking “hmm well that looks a bit fuzzy...”

Important to have a plan up that way I feel as pretty quickly I get bewildered & slightly blown away by the idea that what I am seeing is multiple galaxies in one view containing billions and billions of stars. 
 

Thanks again & clear dark skies! 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by SuburbanMak

[Swithin StCleeve]

On 08/04/2021 at 07:48, Nik271 said:

By the way m101 is way harder than m86 or m87. It's bright but much bigger in the sky so with low surface brightness disappears in light pollution. It's easier with binoculars, say 10x50 or larger.

I agree! Friday night, under rural skies with nice crisp seeing, I saw M101 for the first time ever, through 10x50 binos! Yet I've looked for this without success with a 10" mirror dob (admittedly in more light-poluted skies).
I think M101 is one of those Messier objects that is just out of reach unless you're blessed with nice dark skies. I've seen most of the Messier objects and it's always been a source of some embarrassment that I'd never seen it. I never expected to find it in bins, but there it was, and quite bright too!  

[Nik271]

On 15/04/2021 at 18:52, MercianDabbler said:

I've now had chance to get the pics off the camera and mess with them a bit. A mosaic of two frames, each with three 20 second subs at ISO 12800, 5 darks, no flats. It's horribly noisy and won't win any AP prizes but at least I can see M86 and a bunch of other stuff via the DSLR. I may have seen M86 at the eyepiece too but I could not tell which 'thing' was M86.

This is a pretty decent image of Markarian's chain of galaxies. See this excellent recent image of the same region by @Rob63

with annotation showing which is which.

 

[MercianDabbler]

45 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

This is a pretty decent image of Markarian's chain of galaxies. See this excellent recent image of the same region by @Rob63

with annotation showing which is which.

Thanks for that. I was quite surpised that the framing worked out pretty well. I did check the preview on the camera screen but it's pretty small so the framing is probably more luck than judgement. Probably couldn't do it again if I tried