by Randy Muller
The sky finally cleared up today after this latest bout of cloudy and rainy weather. Sometime around 11am, a cold front moved through town, and swept the moisture laden dark steel blue clouds to the east, and made it wonderfully clear, though a bit windy. The cold front also swept away any illusions that winter was over.
I didn't care about the wind as I just daydreamed about hunting down galaxies near Leo, which I hadn't been able to do since that wonderful night in Fiddletown in January, although this time it would only be from my backyard.
I got out at 10:30pm and the temperature was 35F, but I was well prepared and hardly noticed the cold. The wind had completely died away. It did not seem that cold, even though objective evidence suggested that it was: There was frost on the end of my scope, and eventually, frost on my table.
I assessed the sky conditions by looking at the Trapezium in M42, the Great Nebula in Orion, the middle 'star' of Orion's sword. I could easily see 6 stars, which meant that the sky was very steady.
Next, I looked for a relatively faint Messier object in Ursa Major, M109. If I can see this, it is pretty clear. I could see it, but just barely.
The sky conditions were very good, though not record setting. Even after 4 hours of cooling, my scope still suffered tube currents, though these were not bothersome for the viewing I was doing. Someday I will have to replace the cheesy particle board mirror cell which traps and stores heat with a real mirror cell which is well ventilated.
I set out on my evening's Herschel 400 Hunt by tracking down NGC 2683, a bright (mag 9.6), highly elongated galaxy with a non-stellar center in Lynx, between Cancer and Ursa Major. All the rest of the evening's results would be of a similar magnitude, since I didn't feel like beating my head against the suburban light pollution wall.
Next, NGC 2841 was another oval, bright (mag 9.3), small galaxy with a concentrated center but a non-stellar nucleus in Ursa Major.
NGC 2681 was a round, small, bright (mag 10.4) galaxy with a concentrated and stellar center relatively near 2841.
Over in Leo, NGC 2903 was an elongated, large galaxy hanging off the end of Leo's snout.
I wrapped up the evening with the unexpectedly tiny, but visually dazzling galaxy NGC 3115 in Sextans. It appeared very elongated, very small, very bright (mag 9.3) and very pretty.
All of these galaxies are sufficiently bright and non-stellar appearing to have been in Messier's list, and were generally easy to find. They were also bright enough to show some character.
It felt wonderful to be chasing galaxies in the middle of winter in Lynx, the Lion and the Large Bear.
| Date | February 9, 1999 10:30-11:40pm (0630-0740 Feb 10 UTC) |
|---|---|
| Location | Backyard, in Roseville, CA 121W 16', 38N 44' |
| Instrument | Orion DSE 10" f/5.6 dob-newt |
| Oculars | 10mm, 26mm plossls |
| Seeing | 9/10 very steady |
| Transparency | 8/10 very clear |
| Visual limiting mag | 5.0 |