M100 ,M99 tips required

[Bigwings]

Last night the seeing was not too bad and I managed M 81, M82, M3 & M5 but could not find M100 or M99 even throttling back to my 40mm EP on the 8" SCT. Are these difficult or am I just blind LOL. The GOTO was dropping the seen targets in field...

Any tips....

Cheers

Mike

Enjoy the thunderstorms ...

[Doc]

How dark are your skies? The only thing that helps you observe galaxies is dark skies. I struggle to see these in my 16" dob under my skies. They have a surface mag of 13.2 so pretty dim.

[Sam]

M100 is quite easy to find. All you have to do is find the bright star on the end of Leo then head left 2/3 the distance between Chort and Denebola until you hit M98, (a little above a line extended from Chort to Denebola) which stands out as a thin edge on galaxy. A little to the left of M98 is a brightish star that make a line going up and to the left with two other stars. M100 is a bit to the left of the third star. It's a face on spiral so has not a lot of surface brightness (it does quite a bright core though). If you find M100 have a look below it a bit and you should also see NGC4312 which is an edge on galaxy. Hope that helps:)

Sam

[hal2000]

Post

[hal2000]

The bright star near M98 is 6 Coma. This is part of a very obvious T -shaped asterism. Find 6 Coma on a star map, then find the asterism using binoculars, before using the scope. Once you get the asterism, the galaxies will be easy, as long as your skies are dark enough. Of the three Messier galaxies, M99 is probably the easiest to find, while M100 is a bit further from the asterism than suggested on most star atlases. Good luck.