April 15, 2001

Observer: Tom Campbell
Location: Iola, Kansas (Long: 95 30' W Lat: 37 55' N)
Equipment: 8" Discovery DHQ dob
Eyepieces: 25mm Plössl, 15mm Plössl, 10mm Plössl, 6.5mm Plössl, 4mm Plössl
Time: 9:00pm - 11:00pm CDT
Transparency: Very Clear
Seeing: Stable
Weather: Temperature in 60s. There was a slight breeze.

Wow! The sky was cloudless all day, and it continued until nightfall. This kind of a day doesn't come nearly often enough in the Spring, so I decided to make the most of it. As soon as it got dark, I headed outside.



* M13 (Great Hercules Cluster) [Hercules] - 11:15pm CDT

I was able to really push the magnification up on this one. At 305X, I could see hundreds of stars, including strings of stars going clear across the cluster, and passing in front of the central glow. At this power, the cluster is definitely not completely spherical. The star strings kind of reminded me of a pinwheel, with a diffuse glow in the middle of it.

At 188X, M13 is framed nicely within the field of view, but not quite as many stars are visible. Strings of stars can still be detected, but I can no longer follow them clear across the center.



@ NGC 2903 [Leo] - 11:25pm CDT

This is a really faint smudge of light. In fact, I could barely tell which direction the galaxy was facing. Because of its faintness, this really wasn't an impressive object. I could tell little about it, except for its elongated oval shape.



* M92 [Hercules] - 11:35pm CDT

At 305X, I can resolve stars from about halfway towards the center of this cluster. It's definitely a lot smaller than M13 (at 305X, it takes up less than half of the field of view), but is still a nice cluster due to its brightness and shape.



Whirlpool (M 51) Interacting Galaxies Canes Venatici 9:50pm CDT
NGC 5194 / NGC 5195 RA: 13 29.8 Dec: +47 14 Mag: 9.0, 10.5

The other night, I couldn't see these interacting galaxies at all. But the seeing seemed to be much improved, so I gave it another try.

At 49X, I could just barely detect two little fuzzy knots, surrounded by some nebulosity. I really couldn't make out any details at all. Increasing the magnification made the knots a little bigger, but didn't bring out any additional detail. I'm need to view this from a dark sky site and see how the image compares.
 
NGC 3628 Spiral Galaxy Leo 10:20pm CDT
  RA: 11 20.3 Dec: +13 35 Mag: 10.3

I bagged M65 and M66 the other night, but was unable to get NGC 3628 to complete the Trio in Leo. Since I had such good luck with M51, I tried again.

NGC 3628 could just barely be detected tonight. It appeared as an extremely faint oval smudge, facing perpendicular to M65 and M66.
 
M 40 Double Star Ursa Major 10:40pm CDT
Wennicke 4 RA: 12 20.0 Dec: +58 22 Mag: 9.0

This is really nothing more than a double star. Both stars are fairly faint and appear to be white in color. They have a somewhat wide separation.

I really can't find anything remarkable about this pair. At low powers, I could imagine seeing some apparent nebulosity between the stars, due to the separation. This is definitely not worth coming back to very often.
 
M 3 Globular Cluster Canes Venatici 10:45pm CDT
NGC 5272 RA: 13 42.2 Dec: +28 23 Mag: 6.4

For the longest time, the location of this cluster gave me fits. Last week, I decided to draw an imaginary line between Cor Caroli (Alpha Canes Venatici) and Arcturus (Alpha Boötis). Then I pointed the Telrad at a point along this line that was slightly closer to Arcturus. Boom! Right in the middle of the eyepiece! The best view seems to be at 122X. The cluster is partially resolved around the edges, to about halfway in. A really nice cluster, showing dozens, if not hundreds of individual stars.
 
Sombrero (M 104) Spiral Galaxy Virgo 11:05pm CDT
NGC 4594 RA: 12 40.0 Dec: -11 37 Mag: 8.3

At 122X, this appears to be a long, thin, and bright galaxy. It shows up much better than M65 or M66. I was unable to detect the dust lane, but it still made for a nice view.

At low power, there is an interesting Sagitta-shaped asterism of stars in the same field of view that points almost directly to the galaxy. Neat!
 

About this time, I could spot Vega between tree branches. I really want to look at M57 through this new telescope, but I had work the next day, so decided to let Lyra wait.

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