Galaxy Games II - to see more, use less - and tread in the footsteps of Messier

March 3, 2008 - 3:30 am - 5:30 am - 26F -T4S3

Where the heck have I been? I'm not sure. In the Virgo cluster, yes. Down Macharian's Chain? Probably. M87? Maybe. I have three pages of rough sketches to check against the charts, then I'll be back with a full report ;-)

OK - the "less" I'm referring to here has to do with optics and computers. That might sound strange when you know I was using the 15-inch Obsession, my largest scope. But as for computers, I didn't bother to turn on it's computer-driven "go to" system, nor for that matter the digital setting circles. This session I was in strictly "push to" and exploration mode. And man, when Messier landed in Virgo, he sure must have gone crazy! There are more comet pretenders here per square minute of sky than you can possibly imagine. Trying to pry out whether any of these little blurs was a comet or not makes you really appreciate what Messier did in compiling his catalog. But fortunately, we can short cut the process. We can go where Messier went, make our own chart of what we see, and then check it against the well-established charts. That way we can tread in the footsteps of Messiers, have fun exploring this galaxy wonderland, and not strain our patience.

Why haven't I done this before? I think I blame the computers. They make it too easy to go to things and in doing so, you really lose context. The advantage of star hopping and "push to" is that your sense of context is not only maintained, but evolves. And it's made better by starting with binoculars and small scopes, which, by the way, is the traditional advice that is just as traditionally ignored. We're suckers for the easy path. Get somehting big and hook it to a computer. But the result is a blackbox and objects appear in your telescope with the same kind of hidden magic with which they appear on a tlevision screen. "Go to" has its uses, but sometimes the longer, harder route, is the shorter path to a greater reality.

When it comes to the Virgo cluster of galaxies, I strongly recommend a "push to" approach and forget the charts. Make your own. Then at your leisure, study your results against good charts - paper ones, or on a good computer program. It will improve your memory, your fun, and your observing skills.

This is really an extension of what I've been doing over several previous sessions when I've been searching out galaxies with 8X45 binoculars, a 66mm scope and an 80mm scope. (See this post.) Those are tiny instrument to use to pursue such distant and faint targets, but that's also part of the fun - accepting the challenege of seeing more with less. And when you go from that environment to the light grasp of the 15-inch - or even the ubiquitous 8-inch SCT - it feels like you've moved onto Mt. Palomar.

I started my quest with the 15-inch quite simply - using a Telrad finder and an eyepiece that gave me almost a full degree field of view, I just pointed it at the general area of sky where I know there are a lot of galaxies, then I prowled around until I came to something that looked fairly familiar. This turned out to be M84 and M86, a great starting point, though I wasn't absolutely positive this is what I was seeing because the Newtonian flips the view upside down and reverses it left to right, so when you make a comparison with a star chart it can be confusing. I started to do that, but then said what the heck. Just draw what you see and sort it out later. So that's what I did.

I made rough plots of what I saw on three sheets of typing paper. The first couple of sheets showed a galaxy chain - the last sheet showed some unusual, nearby star fields that I'm still trying to match up with the charts! But the galaxy chain, as I pursued it, was obviously Marcharian's chain. The other night I had been studying the M84-86 end of that chain in the 80mm. Tonight I followed the chain westward and northward to its conclusion. (For ax excellent, labelled photo, see this site.)

One other thing I like about the push-to approach is it's so darned easy to know your sky directions - something that otherwise can be very confusing when you're looking at a tiny portion of what amounts to the inside of a rotating sphere. With push-to stuff moves out of the field of view fairly quickly and all you have to do is know which way it's moving to know where west is. That establkished, north is a piece of cake - just look at where the scope's pointing, then draw a line from there to the North Star. For a Newtonian, you then reverse this to get north.

I've tried all sorts of approaches for keeping a decent observing log. I'm not very good at it. But I've finally concluded that my best approach is to take crude notes and make crude drawings while at the scope, then come in and improve them - if possible within a few hours of the observing session, if not right away. Finally, I write a report, such as this one. Then the loose sheets of paper, all dated, of course, go into a box. I'll probably never look at them again. The result I want is right here.

Looking at the charts I've drawn at the same area of sky with Starry Nights and some paper sources, i found that what I had discovered icnluded M84 (with a distinctive line of three stars justa bove it, a sure-fire identifier); M86 - the brighter galaxy of the two, with NGC4388 marking the apex of a triangle formed by these three. Off to the east were the "eyes" - NGC4438 and NGC4435. All these fit nicely in the field of the 24mm Hyperion. I know there are some fainter members here as well, but instead of pinning them down I cruised tothe east.

This lead me to another pair NGC4461 and NGC4458 with an 11 mag star just to its northeast. Heading northeast, there's another galaxy NGC4473, and then a pair dominated by NGC4477 with a fainter one beside that I think is NGC4479. Off to the north abit more is NGC4459, distinguished by a mag 8.7 star justs outh of it, and NGC4474 which seemed to me othave an especially bright core.

I don't think these last two are part of the chain, but they were alogical branching out from it. There's alot more i need to become familiar with in this area of the sky, but I find the M84/86/Eyes FOV so distinctive - with its three stars to the west of M84, that I think I will always remember it. So this will be my starting point for exploring the Virgo cluster of galaxies.