Spring Galaxies

22 – 23 April 2020, 21:45 – 01:30

Conditions: Breezy, cool. Light condensation (mostly on the star-charts)

Seeing: Initially good, but deteriorated considerably after midnight
Transparency: Average

The previous night/morning I went out sans telescopes to observe the Lyrid meteor shower. After about an hour all I had for my trouble were cold feet and a stiff neck. But hey, that’s meteors for you.

Tonight I returned to deep-sky observing, but before I went out I watched live on YouTube as SpaceX launched another sixty Starlink satellites into orbit, raising the total to 420 (of a planned 12,000!).

I began with some galaxies in northern region of Ursa Major. All observations carried out at 133x (Nagler 9mm) unless otherwise stated.


NGC 4036, galaxy, Ursa Major
Oval galaxy with a bright core – possibly bar-shaped. Mottled outer envelope.

NGC 4041, galaxy, Ursa Major
In same fov as 4036, albeit a little larger and fainter. Brighter towards the centre.

NGC 3945, galaxy, Ursa Major
Small, round and condensed. Stellar nucleus with averted vision. Field star to south.

NGC 4125, galaxy, Draco
Bright, elongated galaxy with bright field star to east. Very bright extended core.

I then pushed further north to look for NGC 4236 (Caldwell 3), but after initially thinking I’d seen something, it stubbornly remained invisible. This galaxy is notoriously faint apparently, so my failure to spot it didn’t come as a complete surprise. (I’ll try again with the Ethos on a better night.) Next stop: Virgo.

NGC 4753, galaxy, Virgo
Large oval haze, east of Porrima. Fairly dim overall but brighter towards the centre. Mottled outer envelope with a suggestion of a dark cut-off on the NW side.

NGC 4699, galaxy, Virgo
Round haze, very bright star-like nucleus with averted vision. Mottled envelope. Near Psi Virginis.

NGC 4293, galaxy, Coma Berenices
Faint elongated ellipse, quite large. Two field stars at either end of the long axis and two more on the northeast side, but no detail other than a vague mottling. North of 11 Com and not far from M85.

NGC 5746, galaxy, Virgo
Edge-on “needle” galaxy hidden away in eastern Virgo. Looked quite impressive with averted vision (especially considering it’s 95 million light years away), but dimmed as soon as 4th magnitude 109 Virginis crept into the field from the east. Brighter towards centre; maybe a dark lane slightly offset from core on eastern side.

NGC 5363, galaxy, Virgo
Round galaxy south of bright star. Bright core and stellar nucleus with averted vision. Couldn’t see nearby NGC 5364.

NGC 5653, galaxy, Bootes
Very faint round galaxy near Rho Boo (plotted in Sky Atlas 2000, not PSA). Brighter towards centre with averted vision. Possible barred core.

NGC 5466, globular cluster, Bootes
Follow-up observation at 133x. Seemed fainter tonight. Large, low surface brightness. This object requires patience: after a while some stars gradually popped out with averted vision.

At this point I had a quick break to eat a banana (well, if it works for tennis players…). When I returned outside I found a snail crawling across my sky atlas (just as well it’s laminated). I intercepted it before it reached M101 and picked up the session with an old favourite:

NGC 4565, Needle Galaxy, Coma Berenices
Bright and beautiful. Still the best edge-on galaxy. Twice the apparent size of NGC 5746.

NGC 4559, galaxy, Coma Berenices
As previous observation last year. Seemed a little faint tonight.

NGC 4414, galaxy, Coma Berenices
Elliptical shape, brighter towards centre. Stellar nucleus with averted vision. Hint of dark cut-off on western side.

NGC 4631 (“Whale”) & 4656 (“Hockey Stick”), interacting galaxies, Canes Venatici
Already past the meridian and starting to descend into the murky part of the sky when I caught up with them, so neither galaxy at its best. Still impressed though by how large they are, particularly 4631. NGC 4657 (the “hook”) was very faint – just visible with averted vision as an extension on the eastern edge of 4656.

NGC 4203, galaxy, Coma Berenices
Small round galaxy near a bright 8th magnitude star. Bright core with averted vision. Nice double star (Struve 1615) close by to the southwest: pale yellow primary and a pale blue secondary (due east).

NGC 4214, galaxy, Canes Venatici
Extended misty patch; brighter towards centre with averted vision and a suggestion of mottling. (I had a better view of this galaxy in 2019; think I need to revisit it on a really good night). In photos it looks similar to NGC 4449.

NGC 4244 (Caldwell 26), galaxy, Canes Venatici
Large, faint edge-on galaxy. Fairly easy to spot, but tough to make out any detail other than a subtle brightening towards the centre.

NGC 5982, galaxy, Draco
Brightest member of the Draco triplet (although I could only see two of them). Appeared as a small round galaxy with a bright core.

NGC 5985, galaxy, Draco
Large round galaxy in same fov as 5982. Low surface brightness. The third member of the trio (5981) is probably too faint to see from my home location.

At this point I upped the magnification to 171x (DeLite 7mm) and had a quick look at some old favourites: M13 and M57. And then it was on to Cygnus for a planetary nebula I haven’t seen for sixteen years.

NGC 6826, “The Blinking Planetary”, Cygnus
171x. Pale green disc near the bright double star 16 Cyg. The nebula brightens with averted vision, causing the blinking effect (although this is by no means unique to NGC 6826). The central star was flitting in and out of view, its visibility affected by the deteriorating seeing.

I also had another look at NGC 6543 (which looked so good the other night). This time the central star wasn’t visible at all, so I dropped back down to 133x for the remainder of the session.

NGC 6939, open cluster, Cepheus
Rich little cluster with two lines of stars forming a distinctive right-angle.

NGC 6946, “The Fireworks Galaxy”, Cygnus/Cepheus
Amorphous round glow near a distinctive triangle-shaped pattern of stars. It’s unusual to see a galaxy in such a rich star-field, but it needs to be much higher in the sky for me to have any chance of spotting the spiral structure. (I did see this one with the SP-102 back in 2004, but it was extremely faint in that scope.)

Nature note:
The tadpoles are getting noticeably bigger. The resident pale adult frog was also present, as well as one of last year’s froglets, sitting on the access log.