Astronomy Buff

Contest Entry: Virgo-Coma Cluster Observing

by Tony on January 9th, 2008

From Jim, who states he wrote this a couple of years ago:

I’ve been working through the StarWatch seasonal windows since I
bought the book last fall. I didn’t really have many problems with
any of the fall or winter windows, but the spring windows are where
the book starts to get into the Ursa Major, Leo, Virgo, and Coma
Berenices galaxies. I ran through all of the spring windows, but put
off the Virgo-Coma galaxies until last because I knew it would be
tough in my Orion 4.5″ XT even from my Mag 5.5 skies. I know I’ve
got the big Hardin 10″ DSH now, but I started using StarWatch last
fall with the little guy, and I’m going to finish out the book with
it (I guess I’m a glutton for punishment) =) The one advantage I
gave myself recently on the 4.5″ scope is that I also picked up a
couple of Pentax XW EP’s at the same time I bough the 10″ scope. I
don’t think I would have been as successful last night without that
14mm Pentax.

StarWatch breaks the V-C GC into two groups: the Western Campaign
around the “Triangle” and “Diamond” asterisms behind Leo’s tail, and
the Eastern Campaign over closer to Virgo. I sort of went a step
further and broke the Eastern Campaign down into two groups: The
outliers M49, M61, and NGC 4762, then all of the rest.

I broke them out that way because the Western campaign and Outliers
have asterisms that are visible in my small finderscope and I could
starhop to them just like any of the other DSO’s I’ve worked on
throughout the book. The remaining ones in the heart of the cluster
required me to starhop through the EP – not something I’m used to
doing without using CdC on my laptop by my side. So far, I haven’t
had to use CdC on any of the StarWatch windows, and I wanted to keep
it that way. I also haven’t had to use my SA2K, but on a hunch, I
decided to bring it out with me anyway – it wound up being a smart
move =)

05/02/05
Rolling through the Western Campaign of M98, M99, M100, and M85, I
had no problems. The pointer stars were pretty easy to work with and
I didn’t get lost on anything. Nothing was knock your socks off
impressive in my little ol’ 4.5″, but all were easily visible.

05/08/05
Starting the outliers of M49, M61, and NGC 4762. Right off the bat I
had problems with NGC 4762. I found it easy enough, but SW doesn’t
say anything about another galaxy, NGC 4754, sitting right next to it
in plain view. I redid the hop 3 times to make sure I wasn’t looking
at the wrong thing, but after getting frustrated, I pulled out SA2K,
and sure enough, there is that second galaxy – DOH!

I finished up the night with M49 and M61 with little excitement.

05/09/05
Into the heart of the beast: M59, M60, M58, M89, M90, M91, M88, M87,
M84, M86, NGC 4387, and NGC 4388, in that order. I’ve strolled
through that area with my 10″, not trying to single anything out,
just wandering around to see what I could see. It blows me away
every time I do it. Thinking about running this in my 4.5″, all the
while actually having to find one particular needle in that haystack
was quite daunting. Like I said – I’m a glutton for punishment! =)

I can see Rho Virginis naked eye from my place, once I’m dark
adapted, so lining it up in the finder as my jump off point for the
night was pretty easy. M59 and M60 were pretty quick and easy to
spot. I tried flipping between the 30mm Ultima, 25mm Sirius, and
14mm Pentax and settled on the Pentax. It has a smaller FOV, but
much better contrast, which is what I figured I needed.

M58 was next up and wasn’t too hard of a slide over from M59.

M89 is where I started to struggle…
The finder charts in StarWatch are a good balance between showing you
enough detail to find what you are looking for but not too much
detail as to overwhelm a beginner. This is the first time where I
thought it came up short. The text descriptor for the hop helped,
but the finder chart only shows stars that you can see through a
finderscope. Trying to use it to starhop through the EP was
fruitless. After spending a good 15 minutes trying to get from M58
to M89 without success, I switched over to the 30mm to get a bigger
FOV without any luck. Finally, I pulled out my SA2K, hunkered down,
studied the stars in the atlas, and made my hop from them – BINGO!
Got it.

StarWatch does a good job describing a small “w” asterism between M89
and 90 and using it as a guide – bullseye, right where it was
supposed to be.

M91 is where I went from struggling to really sucking wind. I
overshot it and landed on M88. Thinking I was on M91, I then
couldn’t find M88! After studying SA2K for a bit, I saw a
small “almost cluster” on the chart that I remembered seeing in the
EP. I went back to M90 (having to restart again from Rho Virginis),
found that “almost cluster”, then was able to slide on over to M91.
Part of what threw me was that SW says that M91 is a fairly bright
and large galaxy, compared to the others. What I missed is that it
was saying “in a 6-8″ telescope”. Duh – that would explain why I
wasn’t very bright or big in my 4.5″ =) My bad, trying to skim/read
in the dark.

M88 was easy after that, I already studied the heck out of that area
before when I thought it was M91 =)

M 87, M84, M86, NGC 4387, and NGC 4388 were sort of anticlimactic
after that. Pretty easy hops, especially using SA2K as my guide.
The two NGC’s were pretty faint and only visible with AV. Even then,
I wouldn’t have noticed them had StarWatch not told me they were
there.

05/10/05
My eyes still ache. My neck is stiff. That stupid grin is still
plastered to my face. And my wife now has evidence that I’m nuts! =)
That was easily the toughest thing I’ve tried to do with my scope
yet, but man, it feels great knowing I did it without any computer
locators, without my laptop, and without my big new 10″! Just my
eyeballs, my lil’ ol’ dob, some charts, and a red flashlight!

Having used SA2K for that run through the heart, I think I could redo
it using only the smaller chart in SW now. Sort of like reading
Cliff’s notes after you read the book as a refresher of what you
already read =) But I don’t think there is any way I would have
successfully completed that last run using only SW. At least not
without some dumb luck.

There is nothing in the summer charts that appears as intimidating,
so I’m hoping to get a couple of nice dark weekend nights where I can
wrap this book up and call it good! I’ve already run through most of
the summer M’s last summer anyway, so should just be a nice
affirmation for me.

In the mean time, I think I’m going to pull out my 10″ and go back
through that last run so I can see what all of those faint, fuzzy,
smudges I found last night really look like! =)

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