by Ron Bhanukitsiri
After successfully bagging the Hickson 44 Group in Leo back in Feb., the 4" TV-102 Light Cup partially caught the Hickson 68 Group last month. Now that the rare LM 5.9 sky is presenting a great opportunity, the Light Cup finally managed to snag all 5 members of this group in Canes Venatici and having a ball doing it. The galaxy members are: mag 11.1 NGC 5353, mag 11.5 NGC 5354, mag 14 NGC 5355, mag 11.4 NGC 5350 and mag 14 NGC 5558. 3 of these galaxies are extremely small! Having bagged NGC 5353, 5354 and 5350 previously, tonight the inhumanly dim but tiny NGC 5355 and 5558 were snagged. However, it cost over an hour on just this one group from 11:00pm to after 12:00am. Here's some surface brightness number I found.
http://www.angelfire.com/id/jsredshift/h68ch.htm
I also use this photo to double check my sketch after the session (mirror reversed, inverted color). Eric Jaimison's advice on the importance of sketching really help with verification.
As with many tough DSO, the group was no where in sight at 22x (40mm Pentax XL) or at 30x (30mm Ultima). At 44x (20mm TV Plossl), only NGC 5353 and 5354 were seen. At 73x (12mm TV Radian), NGC 5350 (the largest of the group) were seen using averted vision but with great difficulty. No core seen, just a round patch with averted vision. It is closer to the bright, pretty yellow mag 6.5 star, GSC 3030:1098 and further away from SAO 44789. Last month under unsteady seeing, the NGC 5353 and 5354 seems like they were kissing with both cores appearing as pulsating knots that reminded of a throbbing hearts of a couple in love ;-). Tonight, the lover sight is no where to be seen and the cores looked steady. At 110x (8mm Radian), only the stellar core of NGC 5358 was seen. NGC 5353 and 5354 now looks like an one elongated, curving galaxy. The large NGC 5350 can still be seen as round patch with averted vision. Thus far, the illusive NGC 5355 is no where in sight. At 146x (6mm Radian), NGC 5355 can now be detected with averted vision. It is **extremely** dim, at the edge of detection and great effort was needed to see it (jiggling, slewing back and forth, changing EPes). The stellar core of NGC 5358 now shows nebulosity surronding the core and does appear elongated with averted vision. It forms a triangle with two dim stars: mag 12.9 GSC 3030:1072 and mag 12.7 GSC 3030:1046. NGC 5350 can no longer be seen! Going for broke with a 4mm Radian (220x) only retained the view of NGC 5353 and 5354. Incidentally, as I was getting my bearings, I saw a large but dim NGC 5371 nearby but failed to take down the magnification used :-(. Great perseverance was required tonight not to mention playing patty-cake with my eyepieces; I must have swapped them 20 or more times! NGC 5355 was the most difficult of the group.
It is most interesting to observe that the Light Cup was unable to see all 5 galaxies under a single magnification and that it takes two different eyepieces to see them all! This group is a lot tougher than the Hickson 44 Group.
Here's a very nice sketch I found on the net. What I saw through the Light Cup was a heck of a lot dimmer!
http://www.jwebdale.btinternet.co.uk/ngc5353.htm
Here are some nice pictures I found on the net.
http://home.att.net/~dsegelstein/Astrophotos/hickson68-legend.html
http://members.aol.com/anonglxy/besthick.htm
Alas, earlier the Coddington Nebula (NGC 2574) was no where in sight possibly because it has now moved into the unfavorable part of my sky :-(.
What a fun night!