by Jamie Dillon
Yup, last night I finally rambled into the Coma-Virgo Cluster. As I said to Wagner, glad I waited till I was old enough.
This won't be a very empirical observing report. 27 new galaxies in a brief swatch of sky. Sure expanded my sense of wonder. All those shapes and sizes.
Stacy was right, it was a good night with a fine crew. There were some 30 scopes set up at sundown, when I pulled in, after Liam's birthday was done. Annie Jump, the newly bought Toyota van, got introduced, and there was just enough light to collimate.
[Please pause here to congratulate Mimi Wagner on finishing her Messier list, becoming a truly legendary observer.]
The sky was sketchy till about 9:30, but after sufficient sacrifices, there were about 10 scopes left, and a sky with good-moderate seeing and 5th magn transparency. I'd spent time finding the Eskimo nebula in Gemini, after looking at it in Rich's scope. Want to see it again in darker skies. Then LeFevre put me onto M104, which was on my upcoming list. The dust lane and bright core came thru, so there was a pleasant half-hour gazing at that. A visit to M65-66 and 3628, then it was OK, take a breath and go.
Worked down from 6 Coma, then didn't do much else but look thru the eyepiece for 2 hours. Mark was a big help in getting bearings, with a couple of minutes of focused tips. And Felix looked good. Checking today, several galaxies that popped out were 13th mag, out of an OK sky. This is a magnitude further than I had spotted in my own scope before, and it was showing good definition. Went up and down Markarian's chain, over to M87, back over to the triangle and up to 4459, out east to M88 and M91, down to M90 and past M58 to 4564 and 4567, on in endless delight.
This was with a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs, using a 22 Panoptic for all the galaxy-fu.
Then a cold wind came up just in time for moonrise. What a night.
Thanks for the great company, gang.