Observing from Roseville night of 3/14

by Mike Conley


When I got home from work after midnight I noticed al the stars out and had to get in some viewing with my new grab-n-go 16"

Conditions

The sky was barely Mag 4.0 .. Rasalas in Leo was just barely visible and it is listed as mag 3.87 in SNP(Starry Night Pro) Next time I'm using Uranometria Clear Sky Clock listed the transparency at mid range

Equipment

Truss Dob 16" f/4.5
Eyepieces 9mm Nagler, 15mm, 19mm and 27mm Panoptic, and 70mm Kellner

M-13 Globular Cluster - It was nice to see this again and even with light pollution I'm enjoying the new view in the 16"

Galaxy Hunting in Leo

M65, M66, NGC3628 Leo Triplet - M65 M66 were fairly bright and NGC3628 required averted vision to see it's elongated shape. All were visible in the same view with the 27mm but the 19mm provided a little more contrast.

Galaxy Hunting in Virgo

M59, M60/NGC4647 and NGC4638 - This was a little difficult for me to identify at first because Starry Night Pro did not have NGC4638 visible and when I saw the extra elongated fuzzy at the top I thought I was looking at M84/M86/NGC4388. Now I understand why the 19mm seems to be so popular and is now my favorite for galaxy hunting.

M58 This was fairly bright and I used this as my star hop waypoint.

NGC4568 (Siamese Twins) - The 2 galaxies were not very difficult to distinguish and I look forward to viewing this again from dark clear skies.

NGC4754 and NGC4762 The elongated NGC4762 in the midst of 3 mag 9+ stars made this an easy one to verify and NGC4754 went along for the ride.

NGC4596 and NGC4608 - In star hopping I was using M59/M60 as a reference point and moving in one direction, returning to move in another direction. I used the stars GG-Vir and Rho Virginis to identify these 2 faint galaxies

M87 and NGC4478 - A big and little fuzzy

M84, M86 and NGC4438 - This was a fun trio of galaxies with the fainter eliptical NGC4483 providing a sense of distance giving the view a more 3D effect. Maybe it's just my imagination ;)

M51 - Was not hard to find but did not show much detail. I guess I've been spoiled by dark sky views of this.

M81 M82 - These were very bright and both were visible in the same view with the 27mm Panoptic

Who ever said bigger aperture doesn't help in the urban skies must not have tried it... IMHO