Missing Messiers

M102
M107

M10 (1)
M12 (1)
M14 (1)
M15
M18 (1)
M19

M2 (1)

M21 (1)
M26-NGC6712 (1)

M39 (1)

M40 (1)

M5 (1)

M61 (1)
M62 (1)

M69 (1)

M70

M71 (1)
M75 (1)
M77 (1)

M80 (1)
M85 (1)

M9

Fuzzies Everywhere - I

Date: May 15th 2010 Saturday
Observation Time: 8:00pm to 12:30pm (4.5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. no clouds.. no winds.. probably best night till now in 2010. seeing was lil bad 8/10.. transparency 9/10
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, np101 APO.
Buddies: Jon


Venus - telescope not cooled down yet.. pretty bad view from my 10" or jon's 16" scope.. blurry..

Moon - few degrees west from venus.. second day phase of moon.. really slick.. excellent view of venus-moon pair as the darkness evolved.

Saturn - excellent view from 16".. jon's scope more stable than mine.. ring, shadow of the ring.. lil gaseous pattern on the disk, 3 moons on right.. in my 10" scope, 7mm image was good.. but barlowed 7mm really blurry..

Castor - easy split with my scope. 4.7 arcmins is indeed easy to split.

Izar - Indeed interesting. companion is in a diffraction ring of primary star. from APO NP101, its a marvelous view. with my 10" scope, can see it, but not as sharp and clean as the apo.

Gamma Leo - Easy split. Companion seems smaller than Primary.

Porrima - Indeed hard.. higher magnification thru Join's 16".. don't remember how much. Its not an easy split. I am able to manage it with my scope. with 7mm ep i.e. 171x (i guess)

M44 - Beehive thru my 10" 35mm pan @ 35x.. looks marvelous. Are there any doubles in here???

M3 - Lost a track to locate this one. Not sure why it happens. Excellent view. Darker the sky better view..

-- Hot chocolate break --

Virgo All messiers: After last week's vrgo browsing, I have gained some confidence in how to browse through fuzzies in this area. In fact last time i missed few nearby messiers.. with smaller 10" scope + 35 Pan @ 35x, shows whole area clearly. should observe this when it real dark and calm, to see more fuzzies at such a low magnification. I was expecting lil better view in my scope, probably lower mag didn't show much. Still can clearly see lot of messiers and ngc objects too in markarains chain.

6 Com star-M98-M99-M100-Markarains chain with M84-M86-4388-4387-4402-Eyes4438-4435-4461-4473. Also M88 and M91 were clearly visible because of low mags. I missed these two las time. Again, M87-M89-M90 visible. On eastern side, M58-M59-M60 were also visible. Lil down M49 was an easy catch. I also mentioned to Jon abt missing M61 (New).. both of us located it and looked at it together. Easier to locate.. Jon noticed few NGCs nearby too..

Did I miss M85, which lil above M100 ??? Hmmm...

Continued..

Fuzzies Everywhere - II

Continued..

Nearby M99 and M100 lies NGC pair 4302-4928 (New).. not sure if they are related? SkyVoyeger doesn't show distances..

M104 Sombrero: Thru my scope 17T4 70x definitely looks nice. dark lane and halo seems impressive. Can't see it clearly in the finder.

Antenna Galaxies: Can clearly see the fuzzy pair @ 70x in my scope. Can not see any antennas.

M68 GC: Haven't seen this in a while.. Easier to locate below corvus. Left side of the bright star. While switching betn Jon's and my Scope, realized the confusion betn right-angled finder and straight finder.

M83 Gal: Easier to catch. Need to observe it carefully. show lot of details in spiral structure with higher aperture.. i missed all.. I was just elated that i was able to locate it :).. seems like it is referred as seashell or southern pinwheel.

Omega Cen GC - Clear view thru 10" scope. Really need to observe this one without light pollution. Jon's place has lil light pollution near Southern horizon.

Hamburger Cen A Gal: Clearly see the huge dust lane in 17T4 @ 70x.

After this, I switched to Leo galaxies, while Jon continued with NGC objects near M83 hydra. He spent probably 30 mins in this region looking for really faint fuzzies.

He showed me hydra fuzzies 5292 (New), IC 4329-4329A pair (New), 5298 (New) and 5302 (New). It was indeed hard to locate this and see them clearly, just because of 16" aperture, you can feel their existence.

Continued..

Fuzzies Everywhere - III

Continued..

During this time, I started with Leo fuzzies. With low mag 35 pan @ 35x can clearly see 2903. Its indeed small but still bright.

Leo Triplet 3193 ben Gamma and ?? star.

Leo Gamma doublet, Again i looked at wrong location (inside the sickle) on this one. Its outside the sickle towards the body. Its on eastern side of Gamma Leo. Can easily see it thru my 10" scope 17T4 combo.

While looking for M95-M96-M105 triplet, i accidentally ended up at k-leo galaxies. They seem lil different than what i have seen thru Jon's scope.. two of them were really bright (i.e. 3367 and 3377), didn't see any other.. Again after relocating I got 95-96-105 triplet.. triplet within 105 was also visible. and thru that was able to move to k-leo gals also.

When moved to M65-M66-3628 combo, M95 triplet is definitely separated more than m65 triplet.. my expectations from m65 were really high being brighter, but din't get any impressive view thru my scope 17T4 70x. Mentioned it to Jon, if seeing/transparency is okay.

Checked for 3607. In 17T4 @ 70x can clearly see 3607-3608 pair. 3605 was also not clearly visible.. required lil higher mags. I believe I also looked at 3599 (New) nearby, thru jon's and my scope.

Jon was tired of fuzzies, so he moved to Saggi and Scorpio, while i continued my fuzzy hunt with Ursa Major.

Started hunting fuzzies in UMa systematically star-by-star.

From Alpha UMa - 1st star - Dubhe:
M81-M82 - indeed marvelous with low mags and high mags. With 17T4 @ 35x can also clearly see two nearby ngc objects. M81 being at center, M82, ngc3077 (new) and ngc 2976 (new) forms perfect Y shape prongs. 3077 is way smaller than 2976. Infact data sheet shows that, though smaller, 3077 is a magnitude brighter than 2976.

Near Beta UMa - second star - Merak:
M97-M108 - Fits in same view (17T4 ??) M97 brighter and more bluish than m108.. m108 seemed to be edge-on type. Nearby NGC 3631 (New) is also an easy catch. Moving from 108-97 in direct straight line or from finder to a nearby bright star HR 4363 helps.

Near Gamma UMa - third star :
M109: don't remember much..seems like it has bright core (??).. missed the nearby ngc object.

M106 - Opposite to alignment of M81-82-Alpha-Gamma stars, lies 106 towards CVn. Observed ngc 4490 near Alpha Cvn. Dont remember much. switched to M106, which is at exact center of Alpha Cvn and Gamma UMa. seems visible thru finder.. M106 seems to have brighter core.. nearby satellite ngc object clearly visible thru jon's scope.. must be 4217 (New) (or 4248 ??)... hardly visible in my 10" scope 17T4 @ 70x..requires more magnification.

Had a quick glance at M63 and M94. just saw so many galaxies that don't even remember much in t details.. need to spend some time on these objects with higher mags.

M51 whirlpool: marvelous view of the pair. Can clearly see the spiral lanes. More time i spend on this one, more details pop up in the eye. In M51 seemes like brighter star-like spot on the spiral arm. NGC-M51-Brighter star like spot. Need to read more abt this one. ???

M101 : closer to 7th UMa star. M51 is on southern-easter side of this tar, while this one is on northen easter side. almost at the same distance. don't remember much.. just too many fuzzies for one night. It needs to be observed with high mag ???

Continued..

Fuzzies Everywhere - IV

Continued..

Continuing the galaxy hunt, switched to Coma.

Coma 4565 Triplet: Easy catch. this one is comparable to 2903 in leo.. but 4565 seems bigger than it. The elliptical 4494 and irregular gal 4559 companions are in the vicinity.. saw both. The elliptical is lil difficult to locate.

M53 GC: I wanted to look at M64 Black eye galaxy, so to confirm switched to Alpha Com and saw M53.. bright-bluish very rich GC.

M64 Black Eye Galaxy: (New): Dont even remember when i watched this one last time. with 17T4 @70x looks definitely nice in my scope. the dark pattern just below the bright core is somewhat visible. with Jon's scope, its clearly visible. Need to try higher mags on this one.

M13: Naked eye.. Thru the scope, can resolve lot of stars outside the core. looks nice.

M80 (New) GC: Never looked at it before.. tiny, compact but seems densely packed. Can somewhat make it in the finder. Looks impressive from both 10 and 16" scopes.

M4 : Big brother of M80.. but after watching M80, this one seems little loose in star packing. Not sure if its the distance-magnification or really physical. Need to read more ??

M57 Ring: bluish disk.. very impressive in Jon's scope. 2" star visible.. din't try higher mags.

Saggi browsing thru M7, M6, M8 Lagoon, M20 Triffid. Lagoon dark lane and ngc cluster clearly visible. Triffid way smaller than lagoon, dark lanes sort of visible to make distinct shape. 17T4 @ 70x.

Open cluster M23: In direct line of M8 and M20. Indeed rich.

M16 Eagle nebula and then M17 Swan Nebula. Swan and background stars look beautiful through nagler 17T4. For eagle nebula, still can't see the nebula clearly. Stars are clearly visible. probably can feel it lil bit, but not as expected..

M54 GC: Bluish.. tiny and very compact.. really close to horizon so didn't go into details. Also tried for M70..but way too low..


Alberio: At the end, quick look at Alberio.. again orange-bluish pair looks marvelous with all other stars in 17T4.

Hunting Virgo Fuzzies I

Date: May 7th 2010 Friday
Observation Time: 8:00pm to 11:30pm (3.5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Lil clouds on western horizon. Transperancy okay.. no wind..
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, NP101 APO, AT102ED
Buddies: Jon

Friday evening drive after work.. was definitely worth because of virgo fuzzies..

- Venus: Checked the APO ED lateral colors in AT102ED and NP101. with focused image, no colrrs in any APO. With out of focus venus, the AT shows the lateral color, while NP just doesn't show anything.. does it bother? nope :).. I iwsh Celestron refractor would haven been.. it would have showed heavy color with focused image itself.

Porrima: Split very very hard hard for me. 396x in Jon's scope..
Castor: Split failed.

- Izar - don't remember..

- Eskimo Nebula.. bluish nebula.. need to get familiar with the location, before it goes away..

- Double planetory - way too faint and tiny in Jon's scope itself.

Browsing thru finder without using red-dot or telerad was lil hard.. is using telerad consdered to be cheating :)? Finder is not focused either. Need to get comfortable with the view in the finder.. right angled finder helps..

- M35 - faint and tiny image in my M35. Need to watch out for the size of the object in low magnifications.

- Saturn - ???

M95-96-k-leo: Quic browsing thru K-leo gals..

Coma 4565 and the irregular one.. moteling ??

M3: GC
M53: GC
NGC GC next to M53: Really faint and dispersed. Hard to tell if its a faint open cluster or the GC itself. How do they identify it ?

- M63 Sunflower galaxy: Elliptical. Easy to catch. CVn visible cluster. M63-M51 and Alkaid Seventh UMa forms a line.

- M51 whirlpool: Spiral feel. Spiral arms. NGC object on the right arm of M51

- M94 in CVn: Easy to spot..


- Black eye galaxy missed..

Hunting Virgo Fuzzies II

Continued..

- Omega Centauri: Easy capture..i really need to see this one from some dark place.. or from india :)

- Centaurus A - Hamburger galaxy - From the refractor NP101, it seemed like a faint loose cluster.. i don't know why.. when i saw omega centauri cluster nearby, i told jon i dont remmeber nay cluster nearby, but there is hamburger galaxy nearby.. and precisely that was it, when we looked thru the 16" scope.. I think Jon was forgotten abt this one.. that was interesting :).. any way the hamburger shape looks perfect.. again lil faint than what i expteted.. It looked awesome thru SDAA scope.. i guess its bad transparency..

- Virgo Fuzzies: I have browsed thru these before, but just never get a confidence of which one is where or how to browse.. So this time, planned it before coming to the observation. got all the prints to locate the objects correctly..

Starting with Epsilon Vir or Vir 33 or Vir 34 always gets me to wrong location. Found M49 (New) easily with this.

Because of Jon's heavier scope and virgo being overhead, also loose the sense of direction. so wasn;t able to locate Markarain's chain correctly.

If you start through Com 6, then its lil easier, because there are not too many fuzzies on the way, to be lost. Also 6 com is easy to locate from Leo Denebola.

M98 on west side while M99 on SE. M100 is also not far from 6 coma.

If you extend the line of M98-6Com-M99 then it goes all the way to Markarain's chain. No other fuzzies in the middle.

Markarain's chain (New in details): M86 bigger than M84. 4388 also seems impressive being edge-on. 4387 clearly visible. also, Jon's 16" aperture shows 4413 and 4425 clearly. 4402 below M86 is visible. Next, Pair of 4438-4435, Eyes Galaxies, visible. 4438 definitely seems to have bright off-core material. Next set of galaxy pair 4461-4458 visible, though smaller.. and then brighter 4473-4477 is visible.. Also, 4479 which is next to 4477 is also visible.. so complete Markarains chain visible.. In the process, I missed M88 and M91.. tried it in Jon's scope, but somehow lost the direction.. I should be able to see all these 16 galaxies from my 10" scope as well..

Once back to M86-M84, can move to east of M84-4388 line to go to M87 (New). 4478-4476 clearly visible next to m87.. really tiny..

If we follow the same line M84-M87, it leads to M58 (New)... otherwise in triangle fashion lies M89 (new) next to a bright star. M90 (New) is close by. 4531 next to M90 is also visible. Also, betn M89 and M58 likes the galaxy pair 4450-4551.

Same line of M84-M87-M58 goes to M59 (New) and M60 (New). 4667-4638 are also visible.

I reversed the whole sequence again back to markarains chain-> M98..

Overall i ended up browsing 31 gals + missed two (M88-M91).. wow.. indeed a galactic zoo..

M81-M82: Just before packing up, thought will take a look.. but failed :) not sure why i wasn't able to find them.. too tired..

La Posta Dinner with Late night Moonset - I

Date: Sept 26th 2009, Saturday
Observation Time: 8:30pm to 11pm (2.5hrs), 00:30am to 4:30am (4 hrs): Total 6.5 hrs.
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: first session: moon 60% illuminated. Cloudy on SWS. Second session: moon set. No winds. No clouds. Excellent seeing and transparency. Best weather seen after a while.
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob (FL 1800mm with parracor), Jon's Celestron 100mm f/5 achromat. Didn't carry my 10" dob.
Buddies: Jon

While helping Jon in moving furniture, decided to also have a late night stargazing session once moon sets. didnt carry my 10" dob. Jon decided to keep 16" scope at blvd house only.

At 8:30pm, first quarter moon was pretty bright with 60% disk illuminated.

Jupiter: In refractor, clear view. The disk bands were visible. Achro color abberation was killing the image. Two moons on left while other two on right side. In 16" dob @ 9mm 200x awesome view. One of the best views. Two bands + the shade on remaining part of south was clearly visible. Also there was dark black spot exactly at the center on south. Not sure what it is.. but i have seen it before in last dark night observation. Jon also didn't know what it was.

M30: Way too faint in refractor. I realized that without the red-dot founder or telerad, hunting the objects are lil tricky. It does have 6x20 finder, but still I get confused with where its pointing. Just trying to understand the refractor. In the dob, with lil magnification, M30 it its specific shape visible. Not really a crispy clear image. Moonlite washed out the view.. Just no point watching any objects on S or W side.

M13: With dob, clearly resolved and shows how huge it is. Not the usual crispy image. shows clearly in refractor finder. Refractor low mag shows as nice GC similar to M22.

M27 Dumbbell: Jon pointed to this guy.. indeed crispy clear in 28mm UWAN @ 65x. shows the typical shape.

M52: To avoid moon, decided to stay on NE side, exactly opposite of moon. Jon pointed to this one, but "discovered" it. He wasn't sure what this faint lil OC is. cosndering the lcoation and the bright star next to cluster, it was indeed M52. With thig mag 120x on dob, it kills the cluster beauty. Better in low mags.

Mu Cephi (New): Wanted to browse all Cephus objects on this night, so started with Mu Cephi. Jon has never seen this before. Perfect Garnet-Red star. More the mags, more red color i can see. Means in refractor with 40x shows it as red-orangish star, while dob @ 120x shows it as big dark-red orangish star. Indeed an impressive object considering its history.

Iota Cassiopeia (New): don't remember too many details. Jon pointed to it. I remember watching two bright white stars very close to each other. I even tried the refractor, just don't remember what i saw.

At 9:30pm, Jon decided to take a nap for a while till moon sets. I continued..

NGC6939 OC - NGC 6946 Galaxy (New): OC in Cephus, while galaxy in Cygnus at the border. Indeed seemed like salt paper cluster. Individual stars are not that bright. but cluster seems to be rich, like small scale M46. CN small wonders also mentioned abt the galaxy 6946 near cephus-cygnus boundary but din't see it... again must have washed by moonlite.

Revisited this object again late night ~2am. Excellent cluster. In 28mm UWAN ~65x, can fit both cluser and galaxy in same view.. Galxy is indeed faint.. but definitely bigger in size.

M31-32-110: To test the moon effect on galaxies, pointed the refractor to M31. Not a great image.. Infact M32 and M110 wasn't that obvious either. So decided to give up on all fuzzies as well as tiny little objects till moon sets.

Alberio: Color of the pair seemed okay.. orange and bluish-white.

Double Double: Wasn't able to split individual pairs that clearly with 65x.

M103: Don't remember the shape. Clearly visible in the finder itself.

Continued..

La Posta Dinner with Late night Moonset - II

Continued..

There are bunch of clusters in nearby area of m103, so started browsing them. considering moonlite, probably OCs are better to observe.

NGC663 OC: While browsing for m103, saw another cluster next to it, which was probably better/bigger than m103.

NGC654 OC: Yet another tiny OC, but still can be identified easily.

NGC637 OC: Seemed to have "gun" shape, bright smaller. but because of tight concentration, feels like a cluster.

NGC559 OC: don't remember anything special in this one..

NGC457 OC: This is definitely bigger and had a curved alignment of stars.

NGC436 OC: Not impressive..also lil bit difficult identify the cluster.

NGC225 OC: Easy catch betn Gamma and Kappa Cas. Bigger..wider.. don't remember the shape again..

M29 OC: Easily visible in 16".typical shape.. seemed tiny.

Perseus double cluster: At high mags, completely looses its charm, At 28mm UWAN, seemed nice.

~11pm, was lil bit tired, also lil cloudy.. so decided to lie down for a while in the car trunk. The space is huge as compared to it seems. Can comfortably fit in two people without any trouble. Still wasn't able to sleep.. Pleiads on east, while Jupiter on west clearly visible thru car windows. Jon got up around ~00:30..everything was clear by then..no clouds and no moon.. excellent seeing.

M42 Orion - m43: At horizon, the trapezium was too wavy. visited it again after an hour when it was lil up in the sky.. It was excellent.. 6 stars in trapezium clearly visible. Awesome seeing. In 28mm UWAN, the nebulousity was fabulous, feeling up the whole 80deg EP. M43 next to it was showing the nebulosity too.. Easily supported high mags.. the internal details of two dark clouds near trapezium was also clearly visible.. indeed gives 3D feeling. The nebulosity near running nebula cluster was also visible.. still ll hard to discern the dark running man. is this just a photo graphic object? probably it is.. Jon has never seen it either.

M78 - bump up mags... nebulosity on next star also. 2071??

M1 Crab

Auriga clusters with 2 ngc objects

M44 cancer

ngc7331

Cephus, cluster + galaxy

stephans quintet

Cephus u cephi IC OC fuziness

sculptor gal 253, gc 288

new scultor gal 247 easy find.. huge ..faint.. with refractor also

M41 - CMa

M46 - planetory

M47

Gemini M35 - ngc next

Eskimo nebula

Double planetory

Asterism 37 OC 2169

Tau CMa

Thors helmet

M74 - next to aries

Doubles:

Rigel

Castor - refractor reflector refractor,

Beta Mono ceris - triplet

lambda orionis - almost like cancer

sigma orionis - 6 star system

milky way alignment - cephus alignment, scultor alignment

Night of Leo Fuzzies - I

Date: 1st May 2010, Saturday
Observation Time: 8:00pm to 12:00pm (~4hrs)
Location: Jon's @ Blvd
Weather: Heavy winds till 9, lower windy till 11pm and calm till 11:30
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, NP101 APO, my/Jon's AT102ED APO.
Buddies: Jon+Francis+Aparna

Heavy winds when we landed at Jon's place. After some house treasure hunts, started with refractors. Dusk light after sunset was still there..

Venus: Way too shaky image.. can't see any phases.. good comparison of lateral color in NP101 and AT102ED. When out of focus, AT shows lot of violet and green color. While NP doesn't show anything at similar magnification. At really high magnification, NP showed lil color.

Castor: Though it was shaky, casto was good split in both scopes. how much is the separation TBD ?? 4.7" arcsec.

Sigma Ori: Tried sigma Ori 5 star system. winds killed it.. can see it, but worst view..

Eskimo Nebula: Okay view of Eskimo through 16" dob. Because of slight dusk light.. wasn't that bright view.. also wasn't too focused either.. cannot see the middle star..just a fuzzy object..

M35: Tried through 102ED-Pan35. Nothing impressive.

M38 - Same like M35. Northern side outside Auriga. Way fainter than M35.

M65-M66-3628 Galaxies: In Jon's 31 Nagler, in single view. excellent and pretty bright. Tried it in on AT102ED. Lil tricky to point the APO for the overhead objects. You can not really get the red pointer directed. Have to get on the ground. Still pointed to it. Excellent view in Pan35.

NGC 4565 Coma Bernices Galaxy - Needle Galaxy: Excellent needle view through Jon's 16" scope. didn't see much details.. Too windy I guess. The location of the gal is easy to catch. Next to Mel 111 cluster.

NGC 4559 (New): Irregular one next to Needle: Can see irregular shape.. larger than Needle, but probably lil fainter (or almost same) than needle.. Also couple of stars on top of the galaxy.. probably there are in field of view. With current view, both are 2-8 o'clk pattern.

NGC 4494 (New): Elliptical one next to Needle: Jon found this one. smaller and fainter than both above gal.

I tried both needle and irregular 4559 gal from my AT102ED scope. Definitely, perfect catch in Pan35. Can't fit both of them in same view.. Both seem really tiny, but still bright.

Tried same from Jon's NP101.

Aparna also joined us to look at 4565-4559-4494.

M104 Sombrero Gal: To show some impressive stuff to Aparna, pointed to Sombrero. Excellent.. really bright view in Nag31 on 16". somehow keep on forgetting the location.

M3: Another master piece of spring night. Easy to track it from Mel-111 from Coma Bernices.

Continued...

Night of Leo Fuzzies - II

Continued..

M81-M82-ngc3077 - Can't fit these together in Nag31 16" view..probably just at edge-to-edge.. really surprised. infact next to m81, there is ngc3077. indeed nice view.. somehow never seen it before..

Omega Centuari - Jon pointed to the masterpiece.. Lil low on the horizon.. Scope was almost horizontal. Easy to catch.. you can feel like you can see it naked eye. Marvelous view through the Nag31.

M4 - Scorpio on SE horizon, tried M4.. indeed smaller and fainter than expected.

Antares - bright red view..

Markarains chain - browsed through markarains chain.. Again i don't know what are the galaxy numbers.. need to do more research and get comfortable with it.

M95-M96-M105-NGC 3371-3373 - Went back to Leo again.. Location was correct... When looked throu the view, can clearly see the triplet. but felt that the messier triplet is too small for the view. I mentioned to Jon that M105 is the triplet in itself.. we zoomed in with 20T2, but didn't see anything..i mentioned to jon i had definitely better view of whole thing thru my 10" than our current view.. After a while, when Jon browsed thru, we realized the real mistake.. the initial triplet we looked at itself was M105 triplet :).. and M95 and M96 were way too apart from each other..with lowest magnification, the scope 2000mm FL with 31 Nag 66x was still high to fit all messiers in same view.. indeed surprising.. need to read more abt comparision betn 65-66 and 95-96-105.

Fuzzies next to K Leo 3367-3377-3412-3346-3348 - The K leo star is next to m105, but interesting thing is there are 5 more galaxies near it.. though they are fainter than M objects, they may be of similar brightness as triplets in m105. 3 of them are on one side and closer to k leo.. 3367 is betn m105 and k leo.. 3377 is 2' clk of k-leo, while 3412 is aligned with 3377 and k-leo... Easy to catch.. while 4th one 3346 on opposite side and lil farther. The 5th one 3338 wasn't able to find it.. was loosing the direction.. any way just browsing thru these gals was just awesome.. the iphone s/w is infact showing more gals in this area.

Triplet 3193-3190-3187 - While looking for Gal pair next to Gamma Leo, Jon pointed to me to this triplet betn gamma and zeta leo stars.. First one on right next to a star, second one on lil-further and top of the star. third one still further above second one.. third one seemed to be really faint and edge-on style.

Continued...

Night of Leo Fuzzies - III

Continued...

Double pair next to Gamma Leo/Algeiba 3226-3227 : Initially wasn't able to find it. Was looking on the other side. Very close pair of galaxies.. somewhat bigger version of planetary double PN.

NGC 2903 - Way below 1st star in sickle epsillon leo. Easy to find. Seemed fainter than 4565. (its brighter but lil smaller than 4565, so i guess considering surface brightness 4565 seemed brighter)

Antenna galaxies in moonlite - moonrise glow was on east. Still can clearly see antenna fuzziness.

Rising Moon: Awesome sight when moon was coming up.. being on horizon lil bigger.. because of clouds up ahead, the moon light was stable.. 70% wanning.. excellent view.. one of the best moon risings even seen.

Stargazing at GC South Rim

Date: 1st April 2010, Thursday
Observation Time: 9:30pm to 10:00pm (~30mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. really dark sky.. few lights from bright-angles lodge
Instruments: 10x50 binocs

Had quick 30min binocular observing session from GC South Rim.

The NELM: can clearly see all stars in Ursa Minor. M44 Beehive cluster was naked eye.

Double Cluster.
M45 Pleides.
Mizar Alcor
M81-M82 barely visible.
M35 Gemini
M42
Mruga shirsha
Cma M41 ??
M46-M47
Alberio Winter
Tau wasn't cleanly visible.
M97
M50 in hydra ? 2 binocular fields apart from m46-47 pair
M44-M67
M3

Tried to look for Virgo galaxies but nothing visible.
M96-97 Leo Gal.. but too overhead and nothing visible.

Mars
Saturn

Deers on the road... while wild cows on the back side of Bright Angels Lodge.