Late Wednesday night, working sucker holes (more like troughs) with my 14.5" Starmaster, I went back to the area in Leo commented on by Marsha Robinson et al., using the positions of NGC 3190 & 3193 to search for NGC 3187 and 3185. Yeah, conditions really sucked (a technical term), but I figured this was probably going to be it for the week. (Tuesday night *was* pretty nice, wasn't it!)
The streetlight out in front of my house just happens to be out right now, so I finally convinced myself to take the 'scope out front for the hunt. To make a long story short, NGC 3187 was nowhere to be found. Not even averted imagination could bring it to life. I definitely need a better/darker sky to hunt it down. NGC 3185, however, was visible - well, sort of - I think. It took me a lonnnnng time - between passing cloud bands - to convince myself that this galaxy was really there.
I used TheSky to verify position, and then kept going back and forth between 17mm and 12mm T4 Naglers to convince myself that the lighter-black item on the darker-black background was really 3185. Seeing kept coming and going, with my "guiding" stars often mushrooming out while I'd watch 'em. NGC 3185 was *much* smaller than the 2.3' x 1.6' size listed, less than a quarter that size, just a small, round, faint nothing. The next time we hit darker skies, I definitely want another look. I also want to bag NGC 3185; I can't find it in my notes, so I don't believe I've ever seen it.
So... if I count NGC 3190 and 3193 in my list of observed items, I hit three
galaxies in 2.5-hours of observing last night. A Jay Freeman I'm not.
Who else has NGC 3187 & 3185 logged? And what did they look like to you?