My backyard

by Anders Landin

Yesterday, the clouds disappeared over my backyard in San Carlos on the Peninsula about the same time as the sun set. I actually had a great time observing despite the marginal outlook earlier in the day. I started out with Jupiter and Saturn and was delighted to have my best views yet of these planets. I don't know for sure if this was purely due to better seeing, or if I had managed to collimate my Orion XT-10 Dob better this night than before. In any case, the Cassini division was very crisply defined at 240x and I saw some faint patterns in Saturn itself. Earlier efforts since I got my telescope two weeks ago have never been as successful wrt details in the planets.

I went from the planets via M44 and M35 on to look for M81 and M82. I saw these clearly from my backyard last Sunday but failed entirely to locate these or any other galaxies a few days ago. I assume that this was due to the seeing conditions although visually the conditions appeared to be the same. After the failed attempt on 81 and 82 I went over to M 51 which I found almost immediately, but it was very faint. I think the reason I saw it at all was because of the characteristic pattern it forms with NGC 5195. I had seen this at the Coyote Lake event last week when Craig Colvin showed me these galaxies. Encouraged from this success I went on to M 63 and M 94. Both were relatively easy to find. This was the first time I have seen these galaxies.

The tour went on to M 65 and M 66 in Leo, which also were relatively easy to find. At this time I decided to try out the large bunch of Messier objects near Leo and Virgo. It was clear however that these, being lower in the sky and to the south, were not in a good position since my location suffers from significant light pollution to the south. I decided to wait a few hours for them to get in a more westerly and for me more favorable position. I went back inside to prepare (and to not make myself a complete stranger to my family). When I got back out about two hours later, the sky was cloudy again and my only choice was to pack up for the night.

Conclusions:

  1. It is obviously very important where in the sky objects are wrt light pollution. I am located on the west facing slope of one of the hills in San Carlos, so I have relatively more darkness to directions with a westerly component and straight up, and worse to the north, east and south.

  2. I also begin to realize that local light sources are more important than I have previously realized. As I was searching for M 81 and M 82 two of my neighbors turned off disturbing lights. I think these were the reason I could not find 81 and 82 while I could see the nominally fainter galaxies later on when my eyes adapted. I never tried to go back and look for 81 and 82 so I don't know this for sure.

  3. It was a mistake of course to stop observing while I waited for Leo/Virgo to become more westerly. Given the threatening conditions I should have used the good skies while they lasted.

  4. Conversely, although it looked most marginal during the day, I actually had a good observing session thanks to the timely clearing of the clouds.

Question:

Is it normal to have problems with galaxies like M81 and 82 in Peninsula 'backyard conditions' or should I just work harder on these when I can't find them?

As a beginner I warmly welcome any kind of comments and advice. Thank you!

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Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 18, 2004 15:30:20 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 10, 2004 18:46:02 PT