by Albert Highe
I was working the area of ngc2985,3027,3065/3066 last night at Dinosaur Point.
All were quite easy to see in my 12.5". My experience is that there are a lot of galaxies that are not plotted in Sky Atlas 2K that are as bright or brighter than some of the objects that are. I am always "discovering" galaxies not plotted in Sky Atlas 2K. The best reference I've found is Uranometria.
I was working my way through page 1 of Sky Atlas 2K last Wednesday night just over the border from Ursa Major in Camelopardalis. There is an area crowded with galaxies near NGC2633/2646. After seeing this field last week, I brought my Uranometria with me last night while I finished off page 1. Although the Sky Atlas plots NGC2633 and NGC 2646 (at mag 12.2 and 12.1), it does not show other galaxies right along side. In the same field of view as NGC 2646 is galaxy IC520 (mag 11.7). Visually, it also is the brighter of the two. Alongside NGC 2633 is NGC2634 at mag 12.0. Visually, NGC2633/2634 are a very closely matched pair. So why is one ignored? Don't know. Also within the same 1 degree field is NGC2636 (mag 13.8) and IC2389 (mag 13.4). I was able to glimpse both with averted vision.
Likewise, when I crossed the border from Camelopardalis to Ursa Major to find NGC 3065, I found two galaxies with nearly equal brightness in the same field of view. NGC3065/3066 (mags 12.5 and 12.9). Can't miss the second one. Of course, Uranometria shows these and the others as well.
As long as I'm talking about Dinosaur Point, I'll give a brief update. We had five people show up last night. Not bad for a Monday. Skies were clear and dark. Seeing and transparency were not as good as last week. Seeing supported about 250X views of the planets. I don't have a quantitative number for transparency, but it didn't appear to be quite as dark as last week, although I was glimpsing galaxies down to 13th to 14th mag with my 12.5". Mag 12's were easy.
There was little or no wind. Temperatures were quite pleasant, never dropping below the mid-40's. We didn't have any dew. At 46F, humidity was 77%.
The ranger didn't collect any fees, so it was another free night.
For me, it was a personal milestone. I finished observing everything on page 1 of Sky Atlas 2K plus a lot of other galaxies plotted in Uranometria in the same area.
A couple of people left by 9PM. Just after 10PM we could see the clouds starting to make their way over the hill from the West. Humidity jumped into the 80's. Seeing and transparency degraded noticeably. Consequently, the remainder of us decided to pack up around 10:15PM.