The Virgo Galaxy Cluster - Heh-Heh!!!!
Take heart average amateur astronomers. Even if you stay in a light polluted shithole like Austink, you may espy some galaxies, anyway. Yes. That is correct. There is hope. So take heart.
Only this morning, for example, I personally espied eight Messier galaxies and maybe a couple or three NGCs. And, heh-heh, I didn’t have to leave my yard. Heh-heh. Here’s how all that happened.
Yesterday afternoon, right before I enjoyed a nice nap, I headed out to collimate the Great Red Tube. I made sure it was spot on. Then I took my nap.
During my nap, I dreamed that my personal copy of the Sky Atlas 2000 had an Appendix B sheet featuring a blow up of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster with lots of stars featured down to about 10th magnitude. I don’t know why I forgot I had that resource, but I remembered finally after I dreamed about it, better late than never. Appendix B, as it turns out, is very helpful. Actually, Appendix B, or something similar, is probably essential for navigating around the Virgo Galaxy Cluster.
So when I headed out this morning, around 4:15 AM I toted the Sky Atlas 2000 along with my usual gear. But before I headed out this morning, I had already headed out the previous evening. Yes I needed to espy M37. So let me start my explanation there.
M37 has historically given me lots of trouble. That’s because it does not show in the finder and barely shows in my trusty yet goofy 40mm plossl. A couple of times when I looked for M37, I never found it. When that happens with anything I look for, not just M37, I get really pissed off. Sometimes I get so pissed off I become irrational and hopping mad. It is during those hopping mad episodes that I am liable to injure myself.
But last night I found M37 before I got hopping mad. Taking the finding of M37 fairly easily as a good omen, I decided to check out the Trapezoid. Dern it. I had to use really high magnification to see six stars and even then, one of those stars I had to almost imagine. I took that as a bad omen. But of course, the Moon was bright and I figured the Moon was messing me up. Once the Moon was down, which it would be by 4 AM, I should be OK. So I went to bed with neutral or perhaps slightly positive prospects.
All righty then. These are the Messier galaxies that I espied this morning in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster in the order that I espied them: M60, M59, M58, M87, M84-M86. The last two I espied simultaneously. That’s almost as many galaxies as I have previously espied ever. Plus, those are the six I set out to espy. None of those six were accidents. Plus, I figured out that the unknown galaxy I had espied the previous morning was M60. Heh-Heh!
Espying those six was fairly hard work and by the time I espied M84-M86 it was already 6AM. So I thought, Crumby, Ogma is fixing to arise. Let’s try for those two up in Leo we have never espied previously. Those two should require minimal star hopping. Plus Leo is high in the sky.
Boom! Heh-heh! Easy. M65 and M66 were simultaneously easy. What a good morning! Seeing was good. The fact is I could even imagine that I could espy NGC 3268. But not officially.
That’s eight Messier galaxies in one morning. Heh-heh!
Only this morning, for example, I personally espied eight Messier galaxies and maybe a couple or three NGCs. And, heh-heh, I didn’t have to leave my yard. Heh-heh. Here’s how all that happened.
Yesterday afternoon, right before I enjoyed a nice nap, I headed out to collimate the Great Red Tube. I made sure it was spot on. Then I took my nap.
During my nap, I dreamed that my personal copy of the Sky Atlas 2000 had an Appendix B sheet featuring a blow up of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster with lots of stars featured down to about 10th magnitude. I don’t know why I forgot I had that resource, but I remembered finally after I dreamed about it, better late than never. Appendix B, as it turns out, is very helpful. Actually, Appendix B, or something similar, is probably essential for navigating around the Virgo Galaxy Cluster.
So when I headed out this morning, around 4:15 AM I toted the Sky Atlas 2000 along with my usual gear. But before I headed out this morning, I had already headed out the previous evening. Yes I needed to espy M37. So let me start my explanation there.
M37 has historically given me lots of trouble. That’s because it does not show in the finder and barely shows in my trusty yet goofy 40mm plossl. A couple of times when I looked for M37, I never found it. When that happens with anything I look for, not just M37, I get really pissed off. Sometimes I get so pissed off I become irrational and hopping mad. It is during those hopping mad episodes that I am liable to injure myself.
But last night I found M37 before I got hopping mad. Taking the finding of M37 fairly easily as a good omen, I decided to check out the Trapezoid. Dern it. I had to use really high magnification to see six stars and even then, one of those stars I had to almost imagine. I took that as a bad omen. But of course, the Moon was bright and I figured the Moon was messing me up. Once the Moon was down, which it would be by 4 AM, I should be OK. So I went to bed with neutral or perhaps slightly positive prospects.
All righty then. These are the Messier galaxies that I espied this morning in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster in the order that I espied them: M60, M59, M58, M87, M84-M86. The last two I espied simultaneously. That’s almost as many galaxies as I have previously espied ever. Plus, those are the six I set out to espy. None of those six were accidents. Plus, I figured out that the unknown galaxy I had espied the previous morning was M60. Heh-Heh!
Espying those six was fairly hard work and by the time I espied M84-M86 it was already 6AM. So I thought, Crumby, Ogma is fixing to arise. Let’s try for those two up in Leo we have never espied previously. Those two should require minimal star hopping. Plus Leo is high in the sky.
Boom! Heh-heh! Easy. M65 and M66 were simultaneously easy. What a good morning! Seeing was good. The fact is I could even imagine that I could espy NGC 3268. But not officially.
That’s eight Messier galaxies in one morning. Heh-heh!
posted by ray pistrum at Sunday, December 07, 2008
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