Omega Centauri, Espied at Last

Smothered in the cloying embrace of the Ample Bosoms, I overslept. Yes. Those bosoms must have temporarily deprived me of my senses. Deprived of my normal senses I somehow overslept.

Or, at 4:15 AM I awoke to panic. Something, a large evil doer maybe, had me by the neck. I sat up. Whoa! It’s already 4:15 AM., Crumby. You overslept. Yet the Goddess eventually sent a dream to awaken you.

My dern neck hurt. So as soon as I got out of bed, I took a pain pill right after I urinated. I need to get an economy bottle of those pain pills. Those pain pills are what the doctor ordered for the nose surgery. But those pills are, I have discovered, best employed against the general miseries.

Then, once I took a nice pill, even before I put on any outer garments, I headed over to the parlor window and looked out. There they were, naked celestial bodies. Yes. The sky was clear.

No time to spare. I had to multitask. I drank my Chock Full O’ Nuts instant coffee as I multi-layered into my cold weather average amateur astronomer outfit while simultaneously gathering up all the gear. Then I headed out, with only a small dog for company. Anon, the small dog deserted me. I was entirely alone.

All righty! Previously, in the galaxy search I always forgot about M64, possibly because I confuse it with the invisible M63. Yet those twain are entirely different. Turns out, M64 is visible, or was this morning at about 4:45 AM. M64 is also an easy star hop from Vindemiatrix.

After successfully espying M64, I decided to try for NGC 5053, the faint globular near M53. Nope. Still invisible.

Then I went for M61. This morning, 16 Virgo was naked eye plus spectacles, making for an easy star hop. Trouble is, even so, M61 was only just on the cusp of visibility as a stellar nucleus. After some debate with myself. I didn’t count it.

Neither did I count M98 nor M100. Those twain were invisible.

Hmm. I expect that some of these invisible ones may be visible if they get higher in the sky at an hour further removed from Ogma’s rising. But even then, Crumby, you shall require a very clear night.

I sped over to Corvus at around 5:15 AM. From last night I had learned that M83, the Seashell Galaxy is an easy hop from 1 and 2 Centauri which are an easy hop from Gamma Hydra which is an easy hop from Beta Corvi. All these stars are easy, naked eye this morning.

M83, is just barely north of the Hydra-Centaurus borderline situated in a helpful star triangle visible in the finder. This morning I found M83 just visible in the trusty 40mm plossl and very visible at about 100x in the 12.5mm X-Cel. M83 is nowhere near as bright as M104, but certainly, considering its declination, a bright galaxy from this location.

Now for the really exciting part. Stop hyperventilating Crumby. Breathe normally.

Turns out, just about all of the Centaur is currently visible from the back yard. No ladder is required. An average amateur astronomer just needs to move around a bit to get a tree free view. The fact is, Zeta Centauri is visible just barely above the tree line. Which means, Omega Centauri is also visible barely above the tree line.

Yes. I was scanning the tree line, with my trusty Nikon Superior Elite 10x42s when I first espied Omega Centauri. Shocking! Omega Centauri is huge. I mean like huge. I shall always remember how huge Omega Centauri appeared this morning. The time is 5:56 AM. Omega Centauri, the mightiest of all the globular clusters visible from Earth is sighted from my miserable light polluted backyard. Yes. Omega Centauri is visible even though I had to go out in the open, mine eyes unshielded by the barn, the Hwy 290 and Austink ISD lights blinding bright. Yes. There is Omega Centauri, skimming the tree line.