Messier Meanderings

Messier Meanderings
Members of GAA had another superb night under our clear dry season sky's on Sat. 24th June.
With plenty of scopes to go around, we set about hunting down some of those Messier objects (As cataloged by Charles Messier in the 1700's) that had either eluded us or not been recorded in the preceding 3 yrs since the club came into being.
Starting out in the Virgo galaxy cluster with my 10" Dobsonian, I attempted to weave my way through this galaxy rich region of the sky.
With a 2" 40mm UO Konig Eyepiece, I would often have 4 or 5 galaxies in the field of view.
Finding galaxies was easy, identified which one I was looking at was entirely another.
This is where the value of a detailed star atlas becomes obvious, I can see a Herald Bobroff Astro Atlas making its way from the USA to me, real soon !
Fortunately Technology came to the rescue, in the form of our club Meade LX-90.
While the LX-90 lacks the resolving power of it's 10" Dobsonian Cousin, laser assisted sighting of the target galaxies, makes finding them with the Dob a snap !
The Value of having a scope each, for much of the evening was evidenced by the long list of new DSO's observed.
Including: The Globular's 4372/4833 in Musca & M3 in Canes Venatici, Spiral Galaxies M63 (Sunflower), M94 & M106 also in Canes Venatici.
My two favourites for the night were the planetary Nebula M97 & big face on spiral M101 in Ursa Major, being lower down on the northern horizion.
In the Virgo/Coma B. cluster, the Ellipticals M84, 85, 86 & 89 along with the Spirals M90 & M106 were tracked down.
The weather was extremely kind to us, with the day of the observing session & the day after being cloudy, but the night was 90% clear !
The Nice thing is we can do this all over again, once the club receives our 18" truss tube dobsonian, which should arrive in time for the next new moon. A large scope such as this will give a whole new perspective on this much sought after list of deep sky wonders.