The Way I See It > Hunting for Herschel's

Limiting Mag:	6.0 - 6.5
Antoniadi:	II
Weather:	Temperatures in the low 70's to upper 60's, very light breeze, broken cloud cover (approximately 60%)
Constellations:	Leo, Virgo
Equipment:	368mm reflector, 11mm Nagler T6

Way back in January, I set my goals for 2008, which included observing the final seventy or so objects needed to complete the Astronomy League’s Herschel 400 observing club. This has been on my mind for the past few weeks and I have been waiting for a first-rate opportunity to do some serious work on this list. On the drive home, the clear blue skies overhead motivated me to make the decision to take the scope out to my dark-sky site and put a dent in the Herschel list. After dinner, I printed out my list, grabbed my Sky Atlas 2000, loaded the scope into the truck, and embarked on my quest a little before sunset.

I arrived at the site just after sunset and began setting up my equipment. The skies were clear, but a slight haze was evident looking out toward the southern horizon. A band of clouds extended about five degrees over the western horizon—these would not be a bother, or so I thought. After setting up the scope, I spent a few extra minutes aligning the telrad and finder scope and tweaking the collimation with a laser. During this time, I had my back to the west and when I finally looked to the west again, that little band of clouds had risen to about fifteen degrees above the horizon—still no worries, or so I thought.

Finally it was dark enough for a few of the brighter stars to become visible and I rechecked the collimation using a bright star, just the slightest tweak was needed. The mirror was still cooling down as evident by the swirling caused by the warmer air rising across the mirror surface. I looked to the west again and the clouds had risen to about thirty degrees above the horizon—my optimism was beginning to fade, maybe it was time to worry just a little.

Now it is dark overhead, and cloudy. The cloud band I had been watching creep over the western horizon arrived just as nautical twilight was ending. Fortunately, I could see that the clouds were broken and scattered. Taking a deep breath and using plenty of optimism, I decided it would be possible to play "dodge the clouds" and still make some observations.

I spent the rest of the night dodging clouds and observing through the breaks. The scattered clouds were moving at a fairly fast pace as evident by how fast they approached from the western horizon to encroach on the skies overhead. Trying to star hop with the Sky Atlas 2000 was frustrating as the break in the clouds would not last long enough for me to complete my hop. I observed some Messier objects through the clouds simply because I already knew approximately where they were and did not have to hop around much to find them. It did not take long for me to grow tired of the game and load up the scope for the trek back home.

Session Observing Log

The following nine objects were observed during this session with four objects being observed for the first time. These objects are listed in eleven observation lists.

= first observation

ID	UT	Object / Description	Type	Con
1912	02:22	NGC 3900	Glx	Leo
		At 167X with an 11mm eyepiece in the 368mm reflector, NGC 3900 appears as a faint, very elongated, diffuse patch of light with a slight bulge near the center of the diffusion. The galaxy is elongated in the north to south direction. With averted vision, the galaxy exhibits a stellar-looking central core. The galaxy lies within a triangle of three bright stars.
1913	02:31	NGC 3912	Glx	Leo
		At 167X with an 11mm eyepiece in the 368mm reflector, NGC 3912 (NGC 3899) appears as a very faint, elongated, diffuse streak of light extended in the north to south direction. With averted vision, a slightly brighter, diffuse central region is discernible. The galaxy lies within a rather sparse area with little or no stars evident in the background. The galaxy lies approximately one and a half eyepiece fields southeast of NGC 3900.
1914	02:38	M 104	Glx	Vir
		At 167X with an 11mm eyepiece in the 368mm reflector, M 104 appears as a very large, bright, very elongated, diffuse patch of light. The central region of the galaxy appears as a large, diffuse ball. A very evident dark lane extends across the center of the galaxy in the east to west direction.
1915	02:56	M 65	Glx	Leo
		At 167X with an 11mm eyepiece in the 368mm reflector, M 65 appears as a very bright, very large, elongated, diffuse streak of light extended in the north to south direction. A diffuse ball is discernible at the center of the galaxy. Averted vision resolves a hint of structure within the galaxy's extent. M 65 lies within the eyepiece field of view with M66, which lies to the east.
1916	02:59	M 66	Glx	Leo
		At 167X with an 11mm eyepiece in the 368mm reflector, M 66 appears as a very bright, very large, oval-shaped diffuse patch of light extended in the north to south direction. The galaxy exhibits a stellar-looking central core. Averted vision resolves a hint of structure within the galaxy's extent. The galaxy lies within the eyepiece field of view with M 65, which lies to the west.
1917	03:16	M 95	Glx	Leo
		At 167X with an 11mm eyepiece in the 368mm reflector, M 95 appears as a faint, slightly oblong, diffuse patch of light. With averted vision, a very discernible diffuse ball lies at the center of the galaxy.
1918	03:20	M 96	Glx	Leo
		At 167X with an 11mm eyepiece in the 368mm reflector, M 96 appears as a faint, elongated, diffuse patch of light extended in the north to south direction. With averted vision, the galaxy has a diffuse ball at its center.
1919	03:46	NGC 4654	Glx	Vir
		At 167X with an 11mm eyepiece in the 368mm reflector, NGC 4654 appears as a faint, oblong, diffuse patch of light extended in the northwest to southeast direction. The central region of the galaxy appears as a slightly brighter diffuse streak. Averted vision resolves a star on the eastern side of the galaxy. Two faint stars or knots are discernible with averted vision near the center of the galaxy. The galaxy lies within the eyepiece field of view with NGC 4639, which lies to the northwest.
1920	03:50	NGC 4639	Glx	Vir
		At 167X with an 11mm eyepiece in the 368mm reflector, NGC 4639 appears as a faint, slightly oblong, diffuse patch of light. With averted vision, the central core of the galaxy appears stellar. A star lies near the southeastern edge of the galaxy's extent. The galaxy lies within the eyepiece field of view with NGC 4654, which lies to the southeast.