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.

Dry Season? Skies

In spite of solid cloud all day on Saturday, GAA's planned viewing night went ahead anyhow!Arriving as the Sun set we enjoyed a Pizza & a few beers as the the last golden rays of light faded from the sky.Still clouded in but with my 10" dob set up (I am an undying optimist) we pursued the usual cloud watching.
Of course, no one else had bought a scope with them (after all it was cloudy!)
Jupiter was the first to poke through the clouds !
The evening just got better from then on, moving first to the Crux/Centaurus region for a good look at the Jewel Box & Omega Centuri.
Not only had the clouds cleared by now but the seeing was excellent (where are those other scopes ?) A 2" 40mm eyepiece gave an awesome walk through of the Eta Carina Nebula, with a 7mm Seibert optics giving an easy view of the Bi-polar lobes of the Homunculus nebula around the star eta Carina itself.
With the clouds clearing towards the horizon now, we sought out the very nicely paired Mars & Saturn in the "Beehive" cluster.
It was awesome to see both these planets in the same low power field of view.
Time spent in this part of the sky would not be complete without browsing though the field of galaxies in the Leo/Virgo region. (Leo Triplet is always one of my favorites !)
King of the galaxies for the night was the Sombreo (M104), with the outer dust lanes & bright central bulge clearly visible !
Clouds came over sporadically throughout the evening, but this did not present any real problem.
The night was finished off well, viewing the rising moon silhouetted by the gum leaves, as it rose through the trees.