Big glass at Skyline Ridge
By Mike Shade

The weather report for Wednesday May 7 looked great so a number of observers showed up at the Skyline Ridge Open Space (SROS) to do a little astronomy. There was a 6" Intes Maksutov, a 3.5" Questar, a couple of C8's, a 12.5 Dobsonian, a 14.5" Dobsonian, and two 18" telescopes; an Obsession, and my cumbersome NGT-18. As darkness settled on the gathered amateurs, it looked as if it was going to be a good night. It was clear and slightly cool, with no trace of fog. However, this location is not as dark as some but is darker than being in the middle of San Jose! The first objects I looked at were M95 and M96, galaxies in Leo. I started here to get an idea of how the 18" would do from this location. They were easy and showed distinct differences in structure even at 64X (32mm). Michele Stone was in the process of hunting some faint galaxies in Leo, so I decided to look at them in my 18". First was NGC3599, listed at magnitude 12. Due to the skyglow it was not apparent at first. However, perseverance paid of and it was finally seen. It was a somewhat small pale glow. Next was NGC3646, listed at about magnitude 11.1. One would think that something of this magnitude would be easy in an 18" telescope. It was difficult due to its fairly large size. With a 22mm Panoptic (93X), the center looked somewhat molted and "chunky." Others noticed this effect as well. NGC3370 another galaxy in Leo at magnitude 11.6 was small and somewhat dim. What was the most fun was running back and forth between my telescope and Michelle's. She would come over to look through mine and I would run over to look through hers. It was like being a kid in a candy store but the candy was faint galaxies in Leo! After looking at the faint stuff, M104 was easy. The dust lane was prominent at 93X. The globular cluster M5 was resolved to the core at 93X as was M13 and M3. I called out for the number of the little galaxy near M13. Jay Freeman came over and maneuvered it into the field of view. It was a nice contrast with big bright M13 at the bottom of the field and the little faint galaxy at the top. We searched in vain for a faint IC galaxy but to no avail. About this time others were wrapping up and after enduring the good natured NGT jokes while loading the telescope into the back of the truck, we all went our separate ways. It was fun to find somewhat faint galaxies less than 10 miles from downtown San Jose.