As a result of the Corona quarantaine less traffic on the streets during 5 days already. Am I wrong or did this result in a transparancy which exceeded normal values? Could be the case. Nevertheless transparancy was all right, not extremely high though,I have seen better, but better than I am normally used to. I used my 150mm Achromat, became wise after an earlier evening when I started with a smaller telescope and switched halfway through.
Gemini
I started out with NGC2392, the Eskimo nebula, followed by
NGC 2420 a small open cluster. Both objects I wouldn't miss. The loose and faint open cluster
NGC 2311 was not recognized, too open, what was the cluster and what was the background? The faint planetary
NGC 2371 was a nice faint blur with an obvious bright dot in the middle.
In
Cancer I was amazed by the impressive open cluster M67, far more impressive than I am used to in smaller telescopes. The Beehive M44 barely fit in my field of view at lowest magnification. I remembered a limiting magnitude test on M44 with several binoculars I had done in the past. Nice to see how the 15cm
Achro did on those stars I could hardly see back then.
In
Lynx I immediately turned to
NGC 2419, the Intergalactic Wanderer, globular cluster, quite difficult to see. I had some trouble seeing it, even with averted vision.
NGC 2683 made it all up again, a galaxy of magnitude 9, but fairly visible. The Bear Paw galaxy
NGC 2537 was a bridge too far for the six incher here in my
LP backyard. Magnitude 11,7.
Leo then? Springtime, Leo time. Leo here we come. Of course M65, M66, M95, M96, M105 were present, as well as
NGC 3607 and 2903. I always am surprised by the faintness of the first four M-numbers in that row. M105 and NGC2903 did a better job.
M87 in
Virgo and M88 in the
Hair of Berenice attended the party of course.
NGC 3414 in
Leo Minor was glimpsed too, being not too big it was just on the edge with its 11.1 magnitude.
How about some more globulars? Well, in
Bootes there is
NGC 5466 for instance. Hmm, a bit difficult with magnitude 9 , 9 arcminutes wide and a bit low too. Did I have to write "fail" now? I am afraid so. M3 in
Canes Venatici was a far more better target. First time I had that object in my 6 inch achromat. Quite nice, that is how I want to see all globulars! I could take the magnification up to the maximum I normally use in the 6 inch
f/5 refractor: a bit under 200X. Funny to see that the well known zoom-trick works different on big globulars: zooming in doesn't mean it becomes better visible, you just zoom in on the center, resolving the core while "loosing" stars at the edge of the object. The best view I had was at 150X with my Pentax XO5.
Two more nice objects in Canes Venatici: M94 a bright galaxy, quite nice. I made an impression of it in
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8042 and of course M51, the Whirlpool nebula. The two centers of it were quite obvious, beautiful nebula. Pity I seldom see it because of the roof of the house and my
LP-skies.
Ursa major
The same goes for Ursa Major, only in the spring it rises above my roof. If it does I mostly hunt for M97, M108, M101 and M109. With M108 and M109 being the biggest challenges. So I hunted them down. I felt like something fresh too. In ISDA I had seen
NGC 2681 an
NGC 2841. With a feeling like: "I won't be able to see them", I put them on my list. Don't know why I did it.
- IMG_1389 - kopie (480x640).jpg (37.54 KiB) Viewed 2582 times
As said I did not expect too much of it. I put 2681 in and had a quick glance. To my surprise there it was. Quite clearly! Enthusiastically I tried 2841. Even more nice with the accompanying stars of Mv. 8.5 and Mv.11! Never expected this! I made a quick sketch of it. Quite happy with these new ones I closed for the night.
Thanks for reading.
John
