Galaxies a globular and the moon 8 inch dob

[mdstuart]

A lovely clear sky so I set up my 8 inch Orion dob in the back garden.

Decided to tour the Virgo cluster using the map in the back of the pocket star atlas.

I hopped around from galaxy to galaxy noting bright cores in M100, M91,M58. I managed to pick up some non messier objects including ngc 4394,4638,4526,4612 and the edge on ngc 4762. I particularly like the contrast when you get a galaxy next to a star/stars such as with M58 and ngc 4526.

Inspired by Callum I had a look at the globular cluster which is in the area ngc 4147. I could start to see granularity with the 8 inch.

Finally I had a look at the moon as this dob has excellent optics and the mountains and craters were amazing. Even the flat mares looked special somehow almost shiny. Here is my effort at a pic with my phone.

 

My wife arrived home from her shift so I called it a night. Really enjoyed that.

Mark

Oh and there were a few lovely doubles amongst the galaxies as well!

[MalcolmM]

Nice report and great pic!

Malcolm

[rojay]

Sounds like a great evening, thanks for the report.

[Epick Crom]

Enjoyable report Mark, thanks for posting!

[Stu1smartcookie]

Every now and then i tend to Fall out of love with astronomy due to sheer frustration and cold weather , but then i read little reports like this and i get enthused to "try Again ". 

Thank you for the report Mark , much appreciated .

Stu 

[wookie1965]

Great report great read some cracking objects.