In between showers. Izar and SS Vir.

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John Baars Netherlands
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In between showers. Izar and SS Vir.

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Post by John Baars »


In between wind, april-snow and rain we had suddenly two hours of clear skies. So I rushed out with my 150 mm achromat in order to capture some deepsky fish and investigate the Redstar Carbon Star of the month as well as the M65 and M66 Monthly Challenge.

The Leo galaxies are quite a challenge under LP skies, a bit more challenging than M84, 86 or 87 in Virgo. As I observed all five of them I could easily see some brightness differences. Galaxies of that magnitude under Bortle 8 skies all look a bit the same though. A slightly lighter spot against the sky background, averted vision and a hood very necessary. The same goes for M51. I could make out M97, the Owl nebula, M108 and M109 however were not visible.

M66 makes an exception to this, due to the presence of two magnitude 9.8 resp. magnitude 11 foreground stars, right next to the galaxy. Another tremendous help is the irregular appearance of the galaxy. The northern part appears a bit brighter. It is nice to see M65 and M66 with averted vision in one field of view. That makes it special and satisfying. See more of them in the Challenge of the month. viewtopic.php?f=83&p=146710#p146710
M94 is an exception too , it has an obvious bright core. I am surprised it isn't mentioned more often in reports.


I had just changed the setup of my Leica Zoom eyepiece. By placing an extra projection tube between barlow and eyepiece, I not only could use my standard 98X to 196X in the 150mm achromat, but also approximately 135X to 270X. That turned out not to be necessary for the Leo or Virgo galaxies. More satisfying was the use of this kind of magnification on globular M3. More small individual stars came alive than with the usual 196X. I was pleasantly surprised, since long I considered 200X as the max. useful. I suppose the steady seeing was responsible for it.

This came in handy with the observation of Epsilon Bootis, Izar. At the newly chosen max. the fainter companion was more impressively visible, with quite some dark space between the two stars.
Izar 150mm Achromat.jpg
Izar 150mm Achromat.jpg (2.59 KiB) Viewed 1157 times

A startest on Arcturus turned out to be quite nice. I am curious how this turns out on Delta Cygni this summer.

Finally I went for SS Vir a red carbon star. It is part of the April challenge of red carbon stars. viewtopic.php?f=109&t=17322 This image can be found there too, amongst others.
SS Vir.png
Then....the clouds came in. It had been a small two hours open space. I rushed to collect my gear and cover the mount. 15 minutes after I came in it snowed and hailed.
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Re: In between showers. Izar and SS Vir.

#2

Post by pakarinen »


Interesting. I've had zero luck with any galaxies aside from M81, M82, M31, M32 in my Bortle 7-8 skies. But my biggest scope is a 120mm.
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Re: In between showers. Izar and SS Vir.

#3

Post by Bigzmey »


Excellent session and report John! I enjoyed in particular Izar and SS Vir. Makes me want to jump out and see more of those colorful doubles and carbons.

I never experienced this with 150ST but with my smaller refractors I find that for fainter galaxies small exit pupils and high powers often produce best views.
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Re: In between showers. Izar and SS Vir.

#4

Post by helicon »


Congrats John on winning the VROD for today for your great report on your observations of the challenge galaxies, Izar, and the carbon star SS Vir.
-Michael
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Re: In between showers. Izar and SS Vir.

#5

Post by kt4hx »


Nicely done John and congrats on the VROD. Toiling under light polluted skies with smaller aperture is a unique challenge and you met it head on my friend.
Alan

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Re: In between showers. Izar and SS Vir.

#6

Post by MistrBadgr »


HI John,
Glad you could get out, make some drawings. :) You took full advantage of two hours from my perspective.

Thank you for sharing!
Bill Steen
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Re: In between showers. Izar and SS Vir.

#7

Post by Gordon »


Congratulations John on having your report selected as todays TSS VROD!!!

Great report and sketches!
Gordon
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Re: In between showers. Izar and SS Vir.

#8

Post by Makuser »


Hi John. Another great observing report from you with the 150 achromatic refractor. It looks like you made the most of the limited time between the rain showers. I really enjoyed your report and your fine sketches too. Thanks for sharing these with us on here John, and congratulations on winning the TSS VROD Award today.
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