Being Obsessive.. Part II

Continued..

Draco
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M102 spindle and galaxy 5907 next to it : M102 was my missing messier and we found it this time. While looking for it, we ended up 5907. Just based on Telerad location, it didn't seem like the right one. 5907 is still very impressive. long, edge-on. not that faint. Took us a while to get to M102. M102 is definitely smaller than ngc, but brighter. Its very close to a star, which is barely visible through naked eye.

So if we have been looking through smaller scope, then i believe m102 will pop up first and ngc would be hard to catch. Now thats a big gotchaa in this big scope, everything seems to be relatively brighter and so will get confused often.

Finally.. I have bagged all messiers now. Still need to observe these more than once.

Gemini
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Eskimo Nebula: When I asked Jon, what was the most interesting object for him in his new big aperture scope, he had mentioned to me about Eskimo nebula. so visited it tonight again. Jon located this one. At 400x, very bright circular disk. Core is brighter. Inside the circular disk and outside the core, you will see some inner ring. With more magnification of 522x in 7mm Nagler, the inner ring was clearly visible. Seeing wasn't so great, so had lil hard time to get the sharp view. Jon observed it at 760x as well with 4.8 Nagler.

Taurus
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M1 : Crab nebula : Very big, bright elliptical fuzzy. no internal details visible. but definitely one of the bigger objects in messier list.

Leo
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M65-M66-3628 triplet : Indeed beautiful and bight triplet. Fainter 3628 was edge-on. probably brightness is same as Draco 5807 gal and similar in size.

Bootes
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M3 GC : Looks nice in the big scope. Stars can be resolved at the core. Stars really weren't pinpoint because of seeing (i guess).

Virgo
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Markarains Chain : Browsed through Markarains chain and near by fuzzies. Probabaly observed in following order: 1 (4429) + 1 (4440) + Markarains chain {{ 4 (M86+M84)-+ 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 }} + 1 (M88) + 1 (M91)

Also, while relocating, observed few more : M58 + 4564 + antenna galaxy type pair (4567-68) + some more fuzzies that i don't remember now :). The fainter galaxies also seem brighter in the big scope, So really need to watch out.

Browsing through this region gives idea about all types of galaxies : brightness, size and shape.

Saturn
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Visited twice during the session. Seeing was always bad. Rings were bright. Saw a darker band on the Saturn's surface. According to Jon, it should be the shadow of the rings on front side. this dark band-shadow was aligned with back side of the ring. Ashwin got confused, wondering how we can see the rear part of rings like this. Instead it was the shadow of front part of the rings. Wish the view would have been more sharp. It was the last object of the night.