Hunting Galaxies between Clouds & a Summer Preview.

[SuburbanMak]

After family  pizza night and an evening in front of the TV it was a bit of an effort of will to head out at midnight to my now regular rugby-field stance. However, it’s been a while since my last “proper” session with the Mak & I’ve been inspired to stick at it to find some fainter objects after recent reports in here so the urge “to boldly go” won out and I duly stumped off to the park with my big kitbag...

A dipping crescent moon with earth-light to the West & steady burning stars between translucent skeins of cirrus meant that by the time I’d walked-in & gone through the familiar set up & alignment routine (N. aligned Vega & Arcturus) I was mentally ready to hunt for some new targets.

Notes:

Skywatcher Mak 127, Baader Hyperion 24mm, 68 degree (1.04 degree TFOV).

Thin high cirrus bands about with occasional patches of great transparency between. Seeing steady. 

Align Vega, Arcturus - confirmed really good seeing outside of the thickest haze. 

M13 - twinkly, looking good. Even at 63x points of light especially with averted vision.

Cor Caroli - split at 63x, lovely steady white pair with neat rings. 

M63 - fuzzy core, wider nebulosity appeared with viewing time. Averted vision showed something brighter within/aligned [checking the charts I think this can only have been the galaxy’s core itself]   “Perseus” shaped asterism at 5 o’clock in finder. Diagonal pair close to L in eyepiece. 

M51 - twin cores! Dark Lane & some connecting glow. Narrow triangle asterism to upper right with brighter apex & faint pair as left hand base point [Stellarium confirmed these as around Mag 11.7 & they were reasonable bright points not “ghosts”]

Centred Vindemiatrix for Virgo tour - couldn’t pick 86 or 87 out of haze though so moved on. 

Leo - M65 & 6 but no hamburger! 

M95/6 probable but not a good view.  Brighter star to L with faint twin at 11 o’clock 

High cloud now getting quite generalised then noted a clear area around Lyra to NE. 

[Switched to Baader Zoom 8-24mm.]

Epsilon Lyrae Double Double. Southerly star, secondary at 5 o’clock, dimmer/smaller than primary though not by a large margin.

Northerly star a closer pair & dimmer secondary  at 1 o’clock. Best (& lovely) view 10mm, 150x  dim star making triangle to lower R. Occasional views of other very faint stars, one on the “hypotenuse” & another in the middle of the triangle. Can’t immediately identify these in Stellarium however. 

Haze by now all over & thickening. 

By this time it was gone 2 am & quite cold. I packed away and as I did so a few holes appeared in the murk and gave way to aswathe of noctilucent mackerel sky through Cassiopeia and Eastward to a horizontal Cygnus & rising Aquila - the Summer Triangle pointing downward toward the South & East.
 

It was quite beautiful & still. I lingered a while & broke out the 10x50s for a quick sweep of the Milky Way parallel to the Northern horizon and up in to Hercules, marvelling at how bright the Great Globular looks in binoculars when fully dark adapted. 

Highlights has to be M51 & Epsilon Lyrae but a really satisfying session on a patchy night that’s left me with that tired, mild  euphoria I get the day following (is it just me?) 

Hatching a plan to drive somewhere that gives me a better chance at Virgo to the SE, maybe tonight...

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by SuburbanMak

[Nik271]

Great report, Mark and well done on the M51. Its become one of my favourite galaxies, especially at this time of the year when it gets high.

I found that 2mm exit pupil with my Maks works best for galaxies in suburban skies, because it darkens the background sky enough to start to spot the faint fuzzies.

On a good night you should be able to spot the Hamburger in the Leo triple as well with averted vision. I recently made it out and was surprised how big it was, double the length of the other two.

[SuburbanMak]

30 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

Great report, Mark and well done on the M51. Its become one of my favourite galaxies, especially at this time of the year when it gets high.

I found that 2mm exit pupil with my Maks works best for galaxies in suburban skies, because it darkens the background sky enough to start to spot the faint fuzzies.

On a good night you should be able to spot the Hamburger in the Leo triple as well with averted vision. I recently made it out and was surprised how big it was, double the length of the other two.

Thanks Nik -  locating M51 was a genuine thrill as I've pointed at that patch of sky a few times with no joy, although on describing it to my son as a "dim fuzzy blob connected to a smaller dim fuzzy blob by a line of fuzziness" I realised a lot of the thrill is in WHAT you are seeing not, what you are SEEING (or is it vice versa?). 

On the Triplet, I have caught the Hamburger only on one occasion so far on a night of excellent transparency around last new moon (March 11th) even then it was a peripheral vision target but constant, Saturday night I got the odd glimpse of something there for a second or two but transparency was coming and going so wouldn't class it as "seen". 

On Eyepieces, thank you - this is very useful as am actively considering if I am working with the best tool for the  job - I think the Baader Hyperion 24mm is delivering around2mm in terms of exit pupil (24mm/f12-ish) but have been mulling over whether there's a better solution. Certainly its a much better field and level of contrast than the 244mm  end of the Baader Zoom.  

Reading around it though, it seems that the only surefire improvement would be darker skies and more aperture  

 

[SuburbanMak]

I meant to note, I put the Mak & AZ GTi on the Manfrotto 55 instead of the supplied SW Star Advenuturer  and this gave me a lot more height - I sacrificed a bit in vibration damping but it did mean that viewing pretty much at the zenith was a whole lot more comforatble and I am sure that's what led to success with M51 this time. 

[SuburbanMak]

A “neat” version of my M51 sketch from 17.4.