Just had a great little warm up outing for my local star party that starts tomorrow at Tuckahoe State Park. I was out for 2 hours with my 14.5″. Sky was pretty dark but not near it’s best. Seeing started off a little soupy and got a little better as the night went on as the breeze died off. Unfortunately, the dew started laying heavy when the breeze stopped to let the humdity rise to 82%. Ah, the luxury of electronic dew heaters. If it was this time last year I would of been shaking pocket handwarmers to make sure everything’s warm and dry. Tonight I mostly targeted galaxies since it’s spring. I did look at 1 new planetary nebula. Below are my logs!
PGC 20235: Tiny but a lot easier to see than I expected. Bright for it’s magnitude. Visible as a tiny fuzzy ball.
MCG 12-7-28: Very faint and small edge on galaxy. I cannot hold it steady with averted vision. Surface brightness is low and diffused. Surface seems slighty brighter in the middle. Sits between 2 bright stars. I can see 2 other galaxies in the FOV PGC 20235 and MCG 12-7-32.
MCG 12-7-32: Small and very bright. Almost perfectly round. Near stellar bright core. Surface brightness is high and some hints of variation is suspected. Almost outshines the 6th magnitude star that sits next to it!
NGC 2357: Small, very thin edge on. Very faint with low surface brightness. Difficult but possible to hold steady. Rich starfield.
NGC 3872: Very bright, oval, with high surface brightness. Medium sized. Very bright core. Could not see the nearby 14th magnitude galaxy MCG 2-30-36.
NGC 4293: Very large, extremely bright, just spectacular galaxy. Surface is long and elongated. Lots of detail and mottling in the surface. Small distinct core near center. I think I can see the surface bend, like if it’s not completely straight. I’ll have to look at a DSS image later to confirm that.
NGC 4357: Vaguely bright, medium sized galaxy with a stellar core. Surface is pretty low and diffused. Slight brightening in the middle.
NGC 4395: For being almost 11th magnitude, I expected more. Galaxy is large but very faint and ghostly. Visible as an elongated glow on the edge of averted vision to hold.
M 3-4: Small, faint, round disk. Stellar at low power because of it’s low surface brightness. Mild response to filters. Blinks better with the Orion Ultrablock filter better than the OIII. Nebula is a non-stellar gray disk at 330x, easier to see without the filter. I can hold it steady with aveted vision but it’s tough. There’s a tight pair of faint stars next to the nebula. Without proper finding charts you could easily mistaken the glow for the PN.
NGC 4401: With an Orion Ultrablock filter in I can see an HII region from NGC4395. I’m certain it’s this one judging by it’s placement. Quite bright with a filter but tiny in size.
