3/30/2009 10:30pm EDT ~ 3/31/2009 1:30am EDT

More Galaxies in Ursa Major

I setup the scope on the back deck a few nights ago and let it cool down for a few hours.  I began my session around 10:30am as the bear's head was approaching zenith and its body and tail sprawled away to the North East.  The crescent Moon was moving on into the West, still bright enough to cast shadows, but not so bright to completely wash out the sky.  Not yet anyway.  I thought to myself that this would be the last night for good galaxy hunting before the Moon takes over and the lousy weather moves in.  I had a plan: there are a bunch of galaxies around Megrez, the star where the handle of the dipper connects to the dipper itself, and Phecda, the bottom star of the dipper.

Here's my trademark map:

Looking up, I could see the twinkle in these bright stars: the seeing was not good but the transparency was.  I centered the scope on Phecda and star-hopped Northeast in search of NGC 3982 and NGC 3998.  NGC 3982 is a barred spiral galaxy and NGC 3998 is a lenticular galaxy.  Using the 8x50 finder scope and reference stars from Pocket Sky Atlas, I was able to center on NGC 3998 readily, then NGC 3982, the dimmer of the two slowly revealed itself to my averted vision.  I was able to get both in the same 0.8 deg. FOV of the 26mm plossl EP.  I would have liked to sketch them both in the same FOV, but I like to find some star or something to keep centered on as I sketch and there was nothing discernable between these 2 galaxies.  So, I decided to sketch them individually.  And here's what I came up with.

NGC 3998 appeared to be the brighter of the two.  It's core held up to direct viewing.  It's outer halo would appear with averted vision and it appeared round.  NGC 3982 was the more difficult one to see as I could only see it through averted vision.  It also appeared round.  NGC 3990 (right next to 3998 and perhaps a companion galaxy) was not noticed.  NGC 3977, NGC 3980, and edge-on spiral NGC 3972 were in the vicinity as well but were not noticed.

Moving West I wanted to make a try for NGC 3898 and I triangulated its location using the 9X50 finder scope and Pocket Sky Atlas.  NGC 3898 is a spiral galaxy seen at an angle of, maybe, 45 deg. if I had to guess.  I found it nestled among a prominent band of 3 stars in the 4 to 5 o'clock area of the FOV.  It was a tiny dim round patch.  To me, it appeared smaller than the others.  I took my time and sketched it before moving on North to NGC 3945.  NGC 3945 is classified as "SB(rs)" by NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, which, if I understand it correctly, is a barred spiral with a slight ring.  Of course, I was not able to see any of this.    I was only able to see a round patch slightly larger than NGC 3898.  But I sketched as much detail as I could and here's what I came up with for these 2...

Now, moving Northeast again, I made a run for NGC 4036 and NGC 4041 and found them.  NGC 4036 is a lenticular galaxy and it is seen at quite a sharp angle as I was able to just barely detect the orientation of its elliptical appearance.  NGC 4041 is a face-on spiral galaxy.  I thought I caught a glimpse of an elliptical shape oriented along a 1 o'clock to 7 o'clock line in the FOV, so that's the way I sketched it.  Looking at Sloan Digital Sky Survey imagery using Google Sky, I see that it is more round then I sketched it.  I got NGC 4036 oriented spot-on, however.

I was about to pack it in, then I saw M109 in the atlas and thought I'd give it a try.  M109 is an obliquely viewed barred spiral just to the East of Phecda.  When I got the region in the FOV I didn't see anything at all!  I don't know if it is my eyes or some phenomena of the Earth's atmosphere, but sometimes I get a moment of what I can only describe as "deep exposure" if I don't move my eye and stare at a blank patch in the FOV for a while unblinking and unmoving.  Suddenly, the view crystallizes and all these dim stars start to reveal themselves and the galaxy's shapes pop out of the darkness.  In a moment like this, M109 appeared out of the murky dark nestled to the left of a vertical band of 3 brightish stars and it appeared oriented roughly 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock.    Then, a slight twitch of my eyeball sent the whole view back to obscurity and I couldn't get it back again.    I made a sketch as best I could, and lo and behold, it wasn't a hallucination!    When I verified the sketch with the imagery, I had the orientation spot-on.  My sketch was a bit narrower than the galaxy, but hey, I'm just happy to have seen it as I did.  Here's the sketch...

By the time I started to pack it in, it was 1:30am and the Moon had set.  All in all, it was a soul-satisfying night of viewing. 

Enjoy!

-StarNerd

Another very nice session, StarNerd .  Your sketches do a great job of showing just how faint some of these targets can be, even through a 12" scope.  That's valuable info for folks just getting started hunting galaxies.  Good job.

zachsdad:

Your sketches do a great job of showing just how faint some of these targets can be, even through a 12" scope. 

Thanks zachsdad.  I'm learning how to post-process the sketches a little bit better, plus I'm using a better grade of paper.  I'm trying to render them to be accurate to the dimness that I saw through the eye piece.  In actuality, some of these were not visible at all directly, only avertedly, but it's impossible to capture that in a jpg. 

I've been sketching galaxies so much lately, I took a break about two weeks ago and attempted M44.  Here's the result.

That's a 1.3 deg. TFoV through the Zhumell QX 30mm 68 deg. eye piece (came stock with the scope).  But, even at 1.3 deg. TFoV I wasn't able to fit the entire cluster. 

 Another great report, complete with sketches.  I continue to be impressed with your reports and your drawings.  They add a nice dynamic to your session descriptions, and are a real learning tool for those of us seeking the faint fuzzies.  Thanks!