NGC4565 and NGC4631/NGC4627 galaxy pair

[rikyuu]

First a quick equipment update:

I finally got chance to test out my new grab and go setup last night and I was very pleased with its speed of setup and its performance. It consists of a Celestron C80-ED on a Celestron (SLT-type) ALT-AZ GOTO mount, coupled with a Mintron camera, focal reducer and motorised focuser. The GOTO mount can be controlled from a laptop running Cartes du Ciel. The Mintron can quickly be swapped with my Canon 300d DSLR (30sec exposures are achievable). I know it's often viewed that a GOTO doesn't help you learn the sky, but actually I've found that I learn quite a bit each night. Even without the laptop attached, the mount handset provides a wealth of information about what object the scope is pointing at and the constellation it is in. I also discovered the handy 'identify' function, which shows all the other stars and objects in the vicinity. With the laptop, it's even better; I can watch the scope's position on CDC and compare the star chart with the image from the Mintron displayed on a separate monitor. Star hopping is still sometimes required, but it's 'hopping' made easy. The laptop, monitor, video capture device, all cables and connections are pre-assembled in a handy flight case, so it's just a case of 10 minutes to make the connections to the scope and camera.

Anyway, this was meant to be an observing report (ie. observed on the monitor, rather than captured). My clearest and most unobstructed sky is to the South and fortunately at the moment, a lot of galaxies are located here, between Arcturus and Saturn (or Denebula) (see, I wrote that from memory, I did learn something! ). I didn't have the laptop last night, so I was just using the handset. A lot of the galaxies in this area are quite small and my FOV is about 1.3deg with the focal reducer, but I found that a couple of objects in the handset's Caldwell catalogue (C38 and C32) were a bit bigger so I homed in on them. Once found I could clearly see them live on the monitor, the Mintron never fails to impress. I quickly sketched them and the surrounding stars to later confirm what I had seen. Both appeared on the monitor to be quite long and thin galaxies, presumably edge on. C32 appeared to have another object; almost touching it, which looked like a fuzzy star, but wasn't sharp enough to be a star, so maybe another galaxy.

Unfortunately that was my hour's observing over and it was time to turn in as I had to be up early.

From a bit more research today (Wiki is great!) and from what I noted from the GOTO handset, I discovered C38 and C32 are NGC4562 and NGC4631.

C38 is called the Needle Galaxy and is in the constellation Coma Berenices. It is an edge on spiral galaxy, magnitude 10.4 and its size is 15.9'x1.85'.

C32 is called the Whale Galaxy and is in the constellation Canes Venatici. Again it's an edge on galaxy, magnitude 9.8 and its size is 15.5'x2.7'. I discovered its little companion that I saw, is NGC4627 and they are classed as a galaxy pair. NGC4627 is magnitude 13.1 and is 2.6'x1.8'. I'm quite impressed the Mintron captured this dim and diffuse object through an 80mm refractor, in a light polluted city!

All in all, an hour well spent!