Posts Tagged ‘Canes Venatici’

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Sep
06
2008

12 Million Light Years

Thursday night (04.09.08) proved to be another clear one and I was determined to begin the galaxy hunt of Wednesday night anew. Breaking out the 25×100 binoculars I began my evening as always with an observation of Jupiter and his Galilean moons. I don’t think that you can ever be disappointed with a view of Jupiter. Even if you don’t see much in the way of planetary detail you are always able to see the new positions of the moons, which I think is half the fun. Callisto, Europa, Io and Ganymede were all on show and spotted a very delicate gas band on the northern hemisphere of Jupiter itself.

After about twenty minutes of observing Jupiter I began the galaxy hunt. I thought I would do some reconnaissance this time and use my Bresser 10×50 binoculars to sweep Ursa Major, Canes Venatici and Andromeda/Triangulum in my search for M81, M82, M51, M101, M33 and NGC 891. The sky transparency made things difficult once again and I was left trying to resolve these faint DSOs’ through a fine veil of mist in the upper atmosphere.

I was still unsuccessful in my pursuit NGC 891 and M33 so moved my observations to Ursa Major and Canes Venatici. After a pain staking search I located M81 and M82 but was still left empty handed with M51 and M101. The view of M81 1 and M82 2 through my 10×50s’ was mouth watering and I savored every moment of it. I decided to try and squeeze some more detail from these two distant DSOs’ through the 25×100s’. I certainly wasn’t disappointed - the view was incredible and I must have spent at least close to an hour just tracking these two objects through the night sky. It’s hard to fathom just what you are seeing - these two galaxies lie outside of our local cluster at a phenomenal 12 million light years away! It just boggles the mind.

To round the night off, I decided to take in a view of the Pleiades through the 25×100s’. As I have said before, this open cluster never fails to impress me and all the more so through my giant Strathspey binoculars. Tracking the cluster through the eastern sky I could make out hints of light blue and azure in the nine brightest stars 3. A wonderful view and a great way to end a semi successful nights’ observing.

  1. A larger spiral, M81 has deformed M82 through gravitational interaction which has caused large amounts of gas to be funneled into M82’s core - the source of the starburst activity. ↩
  2. M82 is an irregular starburst galaxy meaning that it is undergoing a rapid period of heavy star formation that has been caused by an encounter with it’s close neighbour M81. ↩
  3. The nine stars of the Pleiades are named after the seven sister of Greek mythology: Alcyone, Merope, Electra, Caleano, Taygeta, Sterope and Maia along with their parents Pleione and Atlas. ↩

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Sep
04
2008

25×100

Wednesday night was a reasonably clear night with some patches of cloud cover, but nothing too serious so I took the chance to get out and spend a couple of hours under the night sky. The seeing was good but the transparency wasn’t all that great which made observing a little more difficult. Anyway, this was more or less a test run for my latest piece of kit - a pair of Strathspey 25×100 binoculars mounted on an Optical Vision Horizon 8115 tripod.

The night’s viewing began with a look at Jupiter. The view through the 25×100 bins was greatly improved. Colour fringing was minimal and I could almost make out some faint detail on the planet. The moons Callisto, Io and Ganymede resolved with absolutely no problem( Europa was occulted by Jupiter) and I spent around 30 minutes just following the impressive view across the sky.

Next on my agenda were several new DSOs’ that I had never viewed and a couple that I wanted to return to from last weeks observations. M33 the Triangulum galaxy and NGC 891 were first on the list. M33 proved quite elusive and I spent the best part of an hour trying to locate it. I cannot be entirely sure that I managed to pin this DSO down - the lighting conditions and the transparency of the sky all conspired against me. NGC 891 would have to wait for another time as cloud cover rolled in obscuring Triangulum and Andromeda from view.

As this large swathe of cloud blocked my view in the east I turned my attention to Ursa Major and Canes Venatici, the other two constellation on my observing plan. Here I began the hunt for M81, M82, M51and M101. Again, these DSOs’ proved quite difficult to find, but I think I spotted the first two, but will need to spend some more time to refine my observations for all four DSOs’.

I also took the opportunity to have a look at the double star Mizar and it’s faint 4th magnitude companion Alcor both of which lie about 78 light years from Earth. The 25×100s’ easily resolved the two stars otherwise known as the Horse and the Rider and gave a wonderful view of this distant star system. By 2am I was beginning to really feel the cold and decided to call it a night. Hopefully the sky transparency on my next outing will have cleared up.

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