Swimming in Galaxies

Tuesday, March 3 was one of those all too rare nights of absolutely exquisite sky transparency. I found everything I had tried for a few nights before, plus more. It was unbelievable. There was no clouds or haze, and only a little dew.

I wanted to get some Messier marathon practice in the difficult region of Coma Berenices and Virgo, but I also wanted to locate and identify the many non-Messier galaxies in this region. The more I observe this region, the more familiar I am getting with the Messier galaxies, so I wanted to use the Messier galaxies as markers (life buoys, if you will) to the fainter ones.

It was very cold (well, for California), but despite the frozen dew on my table, I didn't get very cold, because I was well bundled up with my thermal underwear, gloves and 'toque' (a French Canadian [I presume] term for the hat that I wear that makes me look like a gang-member ["YO! He's a member of tha Messier Gang -- Ya don't want ta MESS with dem!"]).

With 4 exceptions, all the objects I observed were galaxies. Did I ever mention that I love galaxies? Galaxies give me a palpable sense of the scale of the universe -- well, I guess that's another story...

I began with the bright pair M65 and M66. This time, I looked in the right place, and, voila'!, found NGC3628 immediately. This one is a lot larger and dimmer than the other two. Somewhat to the west, I looked for and found 3593. Cool! Two new ones for my galaxy bag.

Realizing it was unusually dark, I immediately allowed myself to be distracted and went for M101 and M109, which are challenge objects in my light-polluted skies. M101 was an obvious, large, round featureless smudge, and M109 was a small one, barely visible. I should have tried for M102 (5866), because in the past this has also been difficult for me.

While in the neighborhood, I checked out M97, the famous Owl Nebula, which was an oval smudge (I could not see the 'eyes') and edge-on galaxy M108, which was a linear smudge.

At this point I looked around the sky with my eyes, and I happened to see Gemini starting to set in the west. I swung the scope over to the large bright open cluster, M35. I looked for and could not find the cute and tiny open cluster embedded in its side.

I walked over to the table to log my observation. When I was writing the entry, I heard a soft 'thud'. I looked up to see the scope pointing into the ground: My scope was unbalanced because it was pointing so low. Normally, I put a little exercise weight on the back when it's this low, but I had forgotten about it this time. Arrrgh!

I checked the collimation again, and though it was as I had left it before I started the session, it was still not quite right, so I tweaked the primary mirror and went on to more galaxies.

I moved on to Canes Venatici to ferret out more objects: M106 (a bright oval galaxy with a brighter central area); M3 (a bright globular cluster and a gorgeous hint of summer); M51, showing a hint of spiral structure and lightness connected with its small companion galaxy; and finally M63 - a big bright oval galaxy.

I returned to Leo and quickly found the bright pair M105 and 3384. A very short distance away was 3389 (yaay!). I moved on to 3377, near Kappa Leonis, but still could not find 3367. I suspect I was not looking in the right place.

Inexplicably, I did not observe M96 or M95. In fact, looking back over my log, it has a crazy, zig-zag free-wheeling feel to it, as I zipped back and forth across wide swatches of the sky, skipping lots of stuff in between. Oh well, that's what I felt like doing that night.

At this point I realized I had forgotten M94, a bright, small, round galaxy, which looks like an _extremely_ dense globular cluster, so I zigged back to Canes V. and observed it.

I went back to 6 Comae Berenices to swim in earnest among the galaxies sprinkled densely in this area.

I jumped off 6 Comae and swam over to M98, a highly elongated and fairly dim galaxy. At this point my pen started acting up, due to the cold. Though it was still winter here on earth, it was definitely spring time in the sky.

Returning past 6 Comae, I did the backstroke to NGC 4237, a galaxy at the keel of the little sailboat asterism. It is small, dim and round. I climbed the mast of the sailboat to reach M99, dove off toward the stern of the sailboat to M100, dim and round, trailing a little distance behind the boat.

From here, I did the breast-stroke due north up to 11 Comae, hung a right (my newtonian view was inverted) and side-stroked east to the pair M85, which was bright, and 4394, which was quite dim.

I then floated on my back with the current directly back to M100, bumping into the close pair 4340 and 4350 on the way. I freestyled back to 11 Comae, and went due north a short way up to 4293. After all this zig-zagging, long distance swimming and gathering in of new galaxies I had to catch my breath for what to come.

I took a deep breath and freestyled due south, like swimming the English Channel, to reach M84 and M86, both oval and bright. I also noted NGC 4388 at the apex of the triangle formed by these three galaxies.

I then 'discovered' a marvelous chain of galaxies as I dog-paddled along: 4438 and 4435 (a close pair), 4461, 4473, 4477, 4474, and 4459. This chain left me gasping for breath. Even though I've been in this area before, I've never seen this many galaxies at once. As I slowly moved down this chain, one galaxy would leave the field of view as another one entered it on the other side. It was like following the stars of a constellation, but the components were galaxies rather than stars.

Finished with and quite overwhelmed by this chain, I returned to M86 and swam over to M87, a bright oval galaxy with a very bright stellar point in the center. (M87 is also the site of a very bright radio source, Virgo A.) Along with M87, I saw 4476 and 4478 nearby. These are considerably fainter than M87.

Leaving the M87 triad, I followed the wondrous gently curving chain of galaxies directly to M88, a big oval galaxy. I continued to dog-paddle along the great arc of galaxies which included M91 (NGC 4548), M90, M89, and M58. I then backtracked a little to peek at NGC4550.

I finished my run of galaxies with the very bright pair, M59 and M60. This pair was so bright, and by this time I was so overwhelmed by the multitude of galaxies that I completely overlooked the fainter galaxies in this group.

The number of galaxies is just mind boggling. The only limit to their number seem to be the age and size of the universe itself. Stars are limited by the galaxy we're in. All the stars we can see are actually in our relatively close neighborhood. The stars of the Milky Way are a bit further away (but not that much). The number of galaxies I saw with my scope this night (45) is comparable with the number of stars I saw with my naked eye.

I concluded the evening with a quick look at M13 in Hercules, another herald of summer.

Though I was a little tired, I could have kept going. I only stopped because I had to work the next day. It's too bad that nights of exquisite transparency can't be scheduled at more convenient times.

It was a truly wonderful night after such a long time of bad weather.

.---------------------------------------------------------------------
.Date:          Mar 3/4, 1998 11:00pm-1:00am PST (0700-0900 UTC Mar 4)
.Location:      Backyard near Sacramento, California 121W 16', 38N 44'
.Instrument:    Orion 10" f/5.6 dob newt
.Oculars:       26, 17, 10, 7.5mm Sirius Ploessls
.Seeing:        8/10
.Transparency:  9/10 extraordinarily clear
.Limiting mag:  ~5.5+