After a frustrating beginning to spring in SE Arizona, conditions are beginning to improve. Taking advantage of my good fortune-and a high pressure ridge-I decided to do a little galaxy hunting. The instrument used was the 22" F/5 Newtonian telescope here at Sonoita Hills Observatory, Sonoita AZ. Having already examined many of the "showpiece objects" like M51, M63, and so on, I decided to go after some of the "off beaten path type objects" listed on the Adventures in Deep Space web page. After looking over the wealth of information available, I decided that some Hickson galaxy groups might be fun.
In general the conditions were good to very good for this location. Humidity was in the low 30% range (high for here), and the dew point was in the high 20 degree range. I could pick up a magnitude 6.2 star in Ursa Minor fairly easily with averted vision, and I suspect later in the evening I got one of the magnitude 6.4 ones. I would give transparency a 7 early on and an 8 to 8.5 later in the evening. Seeing, being a bit choppy, was only a 6 or 7.
First on the list was Hickson 47 (H47). With a 9 Nagler (308X), I could readily see two distinct glows: UGC 5644 magnitude 15.2 (m15.2), H47D at m16.5 with a suspected third H47B at m16. Tough but fun. H51 at 308X showed NGC 3651 and IC 2759 easy enough as well as H51E at m15.1, H51D at m15.7, and H51F at m15.2. There were a couple of MAC galaxies floating in the field as well. H53 with H53C and B easy, D tougher and MAC 1128+2044 at M17 very difficult, coming and going with variations in seeing. Here magnification helped-a 4.8 Nagler yielded 573X (the joys of a telescope that tracks). H54, with an easy IC700 was tough-H54B at m15.2 easy enough but H54C at m17 was difficult to hold for long at 573X. H61, the "box" was a grouping of four galaxies ranging in magnitude from 13 to almost 15. Elongated, fuzzy, diffuse are some of the descriptors used to describe this grouping. H68 showed NGC 5355, 5358, 5350, 5354, and 5353. I did not detect any of the MAC galaxies in the area. After a run into the house (warm room) to grab a snack, Abell 2151-the Hercules galaxy cluster, was the next object. After climbing the ladder to have a peek, I thought that the seeing must have gone south-the damn telescope wouldn't focus. Only then did I figure out why: they weren't stars-they were galaxies! It was interesting to scan around at 308X and just look at the tiny soft glows, just barely detectable. I must have spent 45 minutes on this one area of sky. In wrapping up the evening, I peeked at M13 and found that I could hold the little galaxy IC4617 with direct vision at 308X. The central star in M57 was moderately easy at 573X. I finally parked the telescope and rolled the roof closed about 2:30. All in all, not a bad night from the backyard.