by Jon Ruyle
I went out to Dino for some observing Monday. My truck was still packed with my C8 from my unsuccessful Friday expedition, so I left work around 5 and went straight to Dino. Despite high clouds the whole way over, it was fairly clear when I arrived at 6:30. Since it was Monday and the weather didn't look so hot, I thought I might be the only one there, but in retrospect, that was a bit silly. I am beginning to suspect that if I stopped by on a rainy Tuesday near full moon around 2pm, I would find Denny and James there having a bbq. "Don't worry. It'll clear as soon as it gets dark."
Albert, Denny, James and Jay were there when I arrived, and the bbq was just finishing up. Archer (who I met for the first time Monday) showed up a bit later.
Early on the sky was a bit mucky. I decided to try the NGC3190 group again, since I had never tried it with my 8" from a dark sky. Mark and Bob have reported seeing all four galaxies from much brighter skies, so I thought I should be able to see them from Dino. Unfortunately, at 100x, I was only able to see 3190, 3193, and 3185, while NGC3187 escaped me. The galaxies I did see were not difficult (3185 was a borderline direct vision object). The sky was murky, though, and I think under better conditions I should be able to pick 3187 up. However, I can't blame the sky entirely- Archer took a look also and was able to see all four galaxies without much trouble.
I then went on to the Virgo cluster. My goal for the night was to revisit the Messier galaxies in Virgo and see as many galaxies from the detail map in Sky Atlas 2000 as possible. But when I moved to the M84/M86 area, the view was so bad that I decided it just would not be possible to see much other than Messiers, so I took a brake in hopes that the sky would improve. James and Archer were having a pretty interesting conversation (it seems James has been to Burma recently) so I listened in for a bit.
After a little while, the sky seemed to be getting better, and a quick glance through the eyepiece proved that it was. Over the next hour or two, I viewed about 20 galaxies, of which the highlight for me was NGC4532. I am not sure why, but sometimes when viewing many galaxies in one night, there is one galaxy for which the magnitude of what I am seeing seems to seep into my consciousness much more than it does for the others. I have to be careful not to try too hard to force it to happen. As quoted by Burnham "One must be open to the 'Ah!' of things" (or something). Anyhow- for whatever reason, I was moved by the sight of 4532. It was totally invisible with direct vision, but with averted vision it appeared edge on with central brightening towards the core. I'll have to check it out with a bigger scope.
Around 11pm the sky began to deteriorate again, and we all packed up. I drove home under clouds feeling happy.