Leo galaxies other than the famous "triplet"

[John]

I enjoy Leo for a number of reasons and a good supply of relatively bright galaxies is one of them 🙂

In the area of the lion's "neck" there are a couple of notable groups, A close pair from the Arp 94 group just "behind" Algeiba are visible in scopes as small as 4 inch on a dark night and a couple of the Hickson 44 group can also be spotted a little further up the "neck". Add the groups in the lion's "backside" and good old NGC 2903 just off the tip of the "nose" and you get some rich galactic hunting with small to medium apertures. Also good practice before diving into the treasures of Coma Berenices and the Virgo "bowl" where getting lost amongst the distant glows is entirely possible 😀

Nice piece on the Sky & Telescope website on the Leo fuzzies by Bob King from 3 years back:

Exploring Bright Galaxy Groups in Leo - Sky & Telescope - Sky & Telescope (skyandtelescope.org)

Edited April 1 by John

[glafnazur]

Thanks for the link, I'll have a go at finding some of them.

[John]

2 minutes ago, glafnazur said:

Thanks for the link, I'll have a go at finding some of them.

Good luck Dave !
Nice avatar by the way - one of my favourite albums 🙂

[IB20]

Made an attempt for the triplet with the 125mm on Friday but the LP sky glow was just a little too much and they weren’t visible. I have to wait until after midnight for the skies to darken more, street and house lights start getting switched off in the area but it’s not really feasible with two young children; I couldn’t function on 3 hours sleep!

The 8” dob has shown me the triplet and would be best suited to other Leo galaxy clusters I feel, especially seeing as it works much better when the temp differential between house and outdoors isn’t too great. I’ll make a note to try for these in a few years time! 😅

[josefk]

I had NGC 2903 on my list last night @John, i noted variegated brightness within its smudge even little lumps of brightness but i was also trying to "definitively" see the brightening of NGC 2905 within it and had no joy with that. 

In general i was finding last night, in some of the groups that i knew to be groups, i could see the core of one or more group member (but usually one) and couldn't see the companions so i think i was clearly walking a tightrope for what magnitude/surface brightness was detectable in my aperture on this particular evening...

Nice session though.

[Piero]

I observed a few galaxies in Leo last Saturday. I quite like the area around the "neck". If I remember correctly, stellarium calls them Leo quadruplet. 

Thanks @John for sharing that article. Like the author, my sky is bortle 4 and we use similar apertures.

The sky was very steady. M3 was superb at 494x with my 16" dob. There wasn't a significant image break down at 714x either. Shame that the sky became foggy around midnight.

Edited April 2 by Piero