by Rashad Al-Mansour
Over the two nights I observed I had a look at all of the eye candy listed in Canes Venatici, Coma Berenices, Corvus, Draco, Hercules, Leo, Ursa Major and Virgo. A total of 63 mostly spectacular views! I saw more than 63 objects however. Most of the listed object had multiple companions some with 5 or 6 objects in the field of view in the 20mm EP.
Each night I started with the Moon and Planets, trying to past the time until I could do some serious observing. But the deep sky was calling and since the seeing was not really good enough for good shallow sky observing and even with the moon bright enough to read a book I dive into the list.
Equipment:
The Big Dog, my 16" Truss Dob equipped with Parracor, 35mm Panoptic, 20mm Nagler, 14mm Meade UWA, 8mm Meade UWA, Argo Navis and ServoCat goto and track system. "Old School" my 4" Genesis SDF using Denk Binoviewers and TV click stop zooms. Most deep sky observation made with 20mm Nagler and the 14mm UWA
A few highlights:
I started in Virgo with Galaxy NGC 4526 nicknamed the "Lost Galaxy"
| NGC 4526 Galaxy | aka PGC 41772, MCG 1-32-100, UGC 7718 | RA: 12h34m03.2s, Dec: +07°41'58" (2000) in Virgo | Magnitude: 10.60 | Size: 7.1'x 2.6' |
|---|---|---|---|---|
I don't know how anyone could lose this thing, it's huge, a beautiful edge on galaxy set almost evenly between two 7th mag. Stars. It was so pretty I made it point to go back to it after the moon set. I'm glad I did! It was even lovelier in the dark. Plus I saw something I missed with my earlier visit. NGC 4526 has 3 faint companions, two of which I could see NGC 4518 mag 14.8 Galaxy and PGC 41726 Mag: 15.1, PGC 41666 15.6 mag. is in the field but I could not detect it. | ||||
| NGC 4762 Galaxy | aka PGC 43733, MCG 2-33-33, UGC 8016 | RA: 12h52m55.9s, Dec: +11°13'57" (2000) in Virgo | Magnitude: | Size: |
NGC 4762 mag.10.2 edge-on Galaxy and NGC 4754 mag.11.5 face-on Galaxy are set in a very nice star field, both Galaxies are bright and showed lots of detail and being that they are on different planes also enhances the view, a must see! | ||||
| NGC 5907 Galaxy | aka PGC 54470, MCG 9-25-40, UGC 9801 | RA: 15h15m53.6s, Dec: +56°19'43" (2000) in Draco | Magnitude: | Size: 11.7'x 1.4' |
While in Draco, Plettstone went into transparent mode. I was studying the dark lane in NGC 5907 a bright edge-on with the 14mm UWA when I suddenly saw a small puff of fluff PGC 54419 mag.16.0 it was there with direct vision. The Big Dog was howling now! | ||||
I had seen some of these objects in my 8" SCT and in my former 12.5" scope but it was nothing like this. Most of this eye candy is very bright. I'd guess most of them could be seen with a 4" scope under ideal conditions, but aperture rules on this kind of stuff.
I look forward to finishing most of this list before Shingletown. I might put together tour in the Argo Navis a best of the best tour as it were for the Shingletown public star party.
Man, it's observing season and I can't wait to get out again! Go away Moon, go away!
A big thanks, to Michelle and Paul for making such a nice weekend possible.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 26, 2004 21:35:43 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 10, 2004 21:56:41 PT