22:15-00:47
Using the 22” Obsession dobsonian tonight.
The temperature was 17° at midnight and 80% humidity, clear and dry
Time – 22:15 / Object – Moon / Eyepiece – 31mm
- Note that all observations are made North South flipped. First I viewed Mare Crisium
- Picard and then Peirce and the smaller Swift crater can be seen easily
- In Petavius crater you can see Rimae Petavius and a small crater to the top
- Mare Fecundities you can see ripples on the floor
Time – 23:20 / Object – M5 / Eyepiece – 31mm
- 5 Serpentis can be seen in the same FoV
- M5 has a compact centre and I can make out a couple of prominent stars to the top right of the cluster in a line from 4 o’clock to 10 o’clock
Time – 23:50 / Object – M51 / Eyepiece – 31mm
- I can easily make out M51 and the interacting NGC 5195 with direct vision, although I cannot see the connecting spiral arms. I can see some of the spiral just not extending all the way to the adjacent NGC
Time – 00:02 / Object – M63 / Eyepiece – 31mm
- This spiral galaxy is seen with direct visionÂ
- I can seen a mag 11.53 star and 3 others in a line starting with Tyc 3024-1007-1
- I can see the bright star next to M63 although the galaxies spiral arms do not reach out as far to it as in a photo on Sky Safari. I can see 2 faint stars diagonally placed on the opposite side of the galaxy in the plane of the disc, not sure of the namesÂ
Time – 00:17 / Object – M94 / Eyepiece – 31mm
- A very bright and tight core easily seen direct vision, so much tighter than the previous M63
Time – 00:24 / Target – M86 and M84 / Eyepiece – 31mm
• Both galaxies can be seen but they are very faint. I can make out the very faint edge on spiral which is probably an NGC, however I cannot find a reference as of yet. This forms a triangle with the two Messier objects as can be seen in this screenshot from TheSkyX.
