by David Staples
| Observer | Dave Staples |
|---|---|
| Date | 13 Apr 2002 |
| Time | 2000-0000 PDT |
| Location | Lake Sonoma CA, 38°43'N 123°02'W Elev ~1500 (Lone Rock Flat) |
| Weather | Mid 60's, clouds moving out, gusty wind |
| Seeing | 6/10 at best |
| Trans | 4-6/10 not great |
| Equipment | C8, 15x70 binocs, various eyepieces |
After a beautiful clear morning that ran into a questionable evening, I packed up and headed for the lake hoping for the best. Along the way, I picked up Peter, a friend of our family. He's 12 and has been dying to come out observing with me, I was hoping the trip wouldn't dissappoint.
We arrived at dusk with high thin clouds overhead and quite a passel o' people, at least by Lake Sonoma standards. After getting set up I showed Pete our planetary wonders since they are somewhat immune to clouds, while we waited for the clearing sky to get past Coma Berenices and Downtown Virgo. Once the clouds cleared out and with Pete as my navigator I was off hopping through the hair.
Having never been through the region before, I started off at Beta Leonis and hopped a nice trail over to M85. Then the fun began ( most observations made at 78x).
NGC4293 - I mis-read SA2000 and stopped here first thinking it was M85 and was underwhelmed until I noticed my mistake. Just barely visible with direct vision .
M85 and NGC4394 - Now this is more like what a Messier galaxy should look like, the small barred spiral companion was just visible with averted vision.
NGC4340/4350/4383 - Detected but not much to see, other than fact that these are 60M light years away, they don't inspire much awe. I've got to come back to this area on a better night.
My navigator wanted to galaxy hop (he came up with that on his own, before I told him that is what most people do in this part of the sky) down though every galaxy on our way through Messiers of the region. So I'll just list the galaxies we were able to see.
That also brings me to why Markarian's Chain is backwards in the subject. Apparently (according to others present) it is more customary to go through the chain starting with M84 and M86 and then go east and north up to M88. Since I didn't even know where the chain was and I started in the area with M85, I started with M88 and went through the Chain backwards.
After the 4340 group we went on to M100, 99 and 98. Both 100 and 98 got wow's from both Peter and myself. My notes say that I saw a hint or ghost of spiral in M100 and M98 was a really cool edge on. After that we hopped over to M88 (very cool) and M91 before starting unknowinly down through the chain.
NGC4474/4459 - always cool to see more than one galaxy
NGC4477/4473
NGC4461
M90/M89/87/NCG4476/4478 - a little side trip before continuing back down
the Chain. I didn't want to get lost.
NGC4461
NGC4435/4438
M84/M86/NGC4388 - After seeing this group and ooh's and aah's from both of
us, I'm glad we went through the Chain the way we did. It was like the
Grand Finale to a great fireworks show. NGC 4402 and 4425 were visible, but
I can't say that we saw 4387 that is in the middle of the M84/M86/NGC4388
triangle.
M58/59/60 - Had to go back through Chain (oh Darn <g>) so as to not get lost on the way. M60 was a real treat with its companion. M58 and 59 were there but not as neat as M60 with its buddy.
I'm pretty sure there were 2 or three more objects aroung 58, 59 and 60 that I forgot to write down, but by this time my navigator was getting cold and tired so we packed it in. It was a surprisingly productive finish to an evening that started out questionablly, 28 new objects for me....one other thing, I think I have created another astronomer, as I was packing up Pete was asking if he could come with me again next New Moon.
Photon Fever has subsided somewhat for now,