The Lion’s Tail

26 March 2020, 20:30 – 22:15

Conditions: Cold and breezy (again). No clouds, no condensation.

Seeing: Poor to average
Transparency: Poor

Breeze aside, the forecasts on clearoutside.com and other websites predicted a really good night for observing. However, as soon as I went outside I could tell it was going to be a challenging session. Although the stars were out and astronomical twilight had passed, the cloudless sky seemed unusually bright, particularly the western half – which was dominated by a weird glow that had no obvious source. It seemed too bright and too big for the Zodiacal Light, although that may have contributed to the overall glow. Add to that an excessive (even by 2020 standards) number of satellites crawling across the sky and weird rummaging noises coming from the overgrown parts of the garden (I never did identify the culprit(s)), and it was altogether a very strange evening.

I started by looking at some double stars with the 9mm Nagler (133x). Polaris, Mizar/Alcor and Gamma Leonis have all been previously documented, but I did observe one new double while star-hopping to a galaxy.

54 Leonis, double star, Leo
A pretty pair of bright stars – close (6 arcseconds), but clearly separated at 133x. White primary and a green/blue secondary. (There are no green stars, so this must be a contrast effect.)

NGC 3344, galaxy, Leo Minor
133x. An extended, irregular misty patch with 2 bright foreground stars superimposed. Admittedly the conditions weren’t ideal, but its apparent “shapelessness”, along with the two field stars, made it seem more like a reflection nebula than a galaxy.

Despite the adverse conditions I had a go at “mopping up” the dozen or so galaxies on PSA chart G (The Lion’s Tail). Several of them weren’t visible tonight, but I did observe the following:

NGC 3607 & 3608, galaxy pair, Leo
Two faint misty patches comfortably in same fov at 133x. Similar size, but 3607 seemed brighter than 3608.

NGC 3626, galaxy, Leo
(Caldwell 40) 133x. Faint ellipse, aligned roughly north-south. Stellar core with averted vision.

NGC 3655, galaxy, Leo
133x. Ghostly ellipse, rather faint. Brighter towards centre with averted vision.

NGC 3593, galaxy, Leo
133x. Faint ellipse not far from the Leo Triplet, aligned east-west. Brighter towards centre with averted vision.

The Leo Triplet galaxies themselves were unimpressive tonight, even when I dropped down to 92x. I had also planned to track down some galaxies in the north-western corner of Coma Berenices, but that didn’t last very long…

NGC 4448, galaxy, Coma Berenices
92x. Ellipse near Gamma Comae Berenices, aligned east-west. Brighter towards the centre.

And with that uninspiring description, the session kind of fizzled out. The curious glow had subsided somewhat, but the sky transparency was still very poor. Globular cluster M3 still looked impressive at 133x, albeit a little washed out. It just wasn’t a night for galaxy hunting. Still, I can’t complain. To get this many (relatively) clear nights over a new moon period is rare for any time of the year, let alone early spring.