From Earth to the Virgo Cluster

March 26, 2008 - 8-11:30 pm - T3-4/S3

In the space of a few hours, Jim, Donna, and I went from observing one of our closest space objects - the International Space Station and its cargo vessel, Jules Verne - to what is described as "the most remote cosmic objects with a physical connection to our own small group of galaxies,"

It was the kind of journey that leaves your head spinning, as you tackle the relatively minor challenge of seeing something - even when that something is billions of stars - that is 60 million light years away. It's not unreasonable to assume that when that light started it's journey to us there were still some dinosaurs on this planet, though they were on their way out. (For one thing, these distances are more educated guestimate than solid fact, so no need to treat it with too much precision - just a good ballpark figure.)

But as I say - tackling this challenge is difficult - but even beginning to grasp the huge implications of what you are seeing? That's the stuff of meditation and dreams for weeks - maybe years - to come.

We also played with some new space googles - actually, they're called "Constellation Viewers" - binoculars that have the totally weird specs of 2.3X40, but allow you to take in an entire constellation, such as Orion, in one gulp. I'll have much more to say about these in another post. For now, let me simply say that they are not toys. These are serious binoculars, well designed and well built.

Bren joined us to observe the pass of the ISS and Jules Verne. This was a particularly well-placed pass. The Jules Verne came first, rising from near the feet of Orion where Jim was the first in our group to spot it. Shining at about magnitude 2, there was no problem following it as it climbed to near 60 degrees in the general vicinity of Mars, then dove into Leo, passing saturn on the way and as it headed for the tail of the Lion it quickly faded, going out of sight in the Earth's shadow while still quite high. It didn't just vanish though, as I thought it might. It went out more like the slow dimming of a light in what seemed something like 15-20 seconds, remain visible in binocualrs a but longer.

The ISS followed the same track - but was much brighter - brighter than Sirius or anything else in the sky and in binoculars looking like a double star. This was a fun way to start the night and made the process of early dark adaption more exciting. Bren had another agenda this evening, but Donna and Jim began the March observing assignments which focus on galaxy hunting in the Virgo cluster, but begin with easier targets.

First on the list was M81/82 and while Jim observed this pair behind the Bear's ear with the 15X70 Astro-Physics binoculars on a p-mount, Donna used the 80 ED which was on the pier and the UniStar alt-az mount. As I think of it, these two objects are a nice object to start to become comfortable with the mounts being used. They are so close to the pole that whiole they appear to move with the spinning Earth, the movement is very slow, so you only have to make occasional adjustments. I started the 80ED with the 30mm ClearVue. That gave it 20X, so it was very similar to what Jim was seeing in binoculars.

From that we moved to the 15-inch and progressed from the 30mm to the 21 and 13mm Hyperions. The level of detail here gave a good feel for what galaxies look like when they're "nearby" - 12 million light years away. From there we moved to the Leo Triplet and there I goofed - I stayed witht he view in the 80mm ED and never did put the 15-inch on it as I had intended. Somehow I got off track and dove into the center (M84) of the Virgo Cluster with the 15-inch.

In this case I stuck with the 30mm and Jim and Donna sketched the fields they saw so they could later compare their experience with photos and charts.

Somewhere late in the mix we took a side tour to Kemble's Cascade and I explained the star-hop to it using the 6X30 finder on the 80 ED - handy for this purpose, but I miss the red dot finder for other purposes. The Cascade was hardly at its best - low in the north with lots of light pollution in that direction. after examing the cluster at the end at highpower, we switched to Saturn in the 15-inch - wow!

What a change it is to be straining to see faint fuzzies, then have Saturn suddenly come jumping intot he field of view like a neon sign! We could easily pick out four moons. (Jim found the one closest to the rings. ) Whether we saw more depends on where Titan was and whether or not we were confusing it with a star.

Hmmm. . . just checked. The faint moon very near the rings was Titan! What we missed was Enceladus which was near the rings on the other side.

(Work in progress)