by Géza Kurczveil
I started the night with the California nebula. With my 2" H-beta attached to my 40mm Paragon, NGC1499 gave a very nice show. It appeared to be about 4 degrees long and 1 degree wide - very nice. With the same setup (40mm + H-beta) I moved over to the Orion nebula, which took on a very dramatic appearance. A quick push up, and I was at the flame nebula - the dark lane was easily visible. It was here, that I saw the first unexpected visitor: The horse head; there it was. The nebulosity was easily visible, the dark indentation was a little more difficult. Another push up and I was in the region around M78. Here I came across my second unexpected visitor: Barnard's loop. I was actually able to follow most of the northern arc of the loop, but it was pretty faint and the two ends were poorly defined. With the filter removed I moved over to M45 to see if I could see the nebulosity around Merope. I was under the impression that there was a nebula extending in one direction from Merope, while no other stars in M45 showed a similar effect - I was happy.
For the remainder of the night, I pretty much just hopped from one galaxy to the other. This also included staring at Downtown Virgo through my 40mm - wow. Here is a quick summary of most objects I visited.
N3169: 2 galaxies seen
N3242
N3336: not seen
PGC31316: Yes, that's right. On POSS pictures this galaxy appeared to be
very nice, but I was only able to see a point source at the location. (
10h34m50.59s, -28°34'58.7")
N3486
N3504: not sure
N3245: very faint
N3430, N3396: 3 galaxies seen
N3995: 2 galaxies seen.
N3290: 2 members
N3686: 3 members in a straight line
N3501: not seen
N4535, N4526, N4488, N4519: In the same field of view. This area is one of
my long time favorites.
N4273
N4038
N4027
N4361
N4565
N4656
Of course I visited numerous Messiers that were in the general area of these galaxies including M82 (in the same field as M81 and N077), M97 (in same field with M108), M65, M105, M51, M46, ... It was at M46 that I noticed an interesting effect in my 40mm Paragon. When a pan the field with an open cluster in the center I get ... nauseous. In my 20mm Ploessl this has never happened. But I don't blame the Paragon, after all I also get nauseous when I try to read while I am a passenger in a car.
Overall, it was a very nice night. I packed up around 11:30pm and left. Next time I am going to spend some more time in Virgo and Ursa Major.
--
Géza.