A clear night at "Winterstube" site

Night Sunday / Monday, April 10/11, 2016

The seeing started poorly, which was evident when observing the Moon and Jupiter. And while the close 1.6" color contrast
double Struve 644 was split, we nevertheless couldn't get a sharp image here. And there was some moisture around as well,
the optical surfaces tended to get easily blurred. But Ralph is meanwhile well prepared for this problem, by means of small
"heating jackets" which can be wrapped around the secondary mirror, finder and the eyepieces. That helped a lot !

One of our aims was M82 again, also motivated by an article in Sky & Telescope. We spent some time there,
using quite high magifications of 335x, 425x and about 600x; these revealed some of the chaotic details of this
magnificent active galaxy - despite a still rather poor seeing . While the neighbor galaxy M81 showed it's two main
spiral arms. Moreover we also visited such great galaxies as the dustband-needle NGC 4565, the "fish" NGC 4631
(with many knots) and the "Whirlpool" M51.

6 Comae was once again the starting point for the Virgo cluster, and we could discern some spiral structure in M99
and M100 - the latter clearly showed its huge arms on the southern and north-western side. And the unequal pair
NGC 4298 / NGC 4302 was really nice- one galaxy round, the other edge-on. Then we observed a group of three thin
edge-on galaxies, who appear within one field in the wide-angle eyepiece. NGC 4216 is by far the brightest of them,
easily revealing its dust band - a dark edge on the eastern side. And close by lie NGC 4206 and NGC 4222; the latter
is the faintest, and also seemed to be the thinnest of them - in relation length to width.

Sometime after 1:00 Ralph went into his sleeping bag on the nearby dam. I also felt some tiredness, but chose to
ignore it - given my observing aims for this night. The clear Alpine sky both increased my euphoria and energy,
and the seeing had also markedly improved - an additional incentive to go on !

My starting point for a new starhop with the 6x30 finder was 93 Leonis, my first aim being the 300 million light
years distant galaxy cluster Abell 1367, with its central "monster" NGC 3842 (mag 11.8); I could discern many
patches in this area, among them the edge-on UGC 6697 - shown on an image made by Juergen Reinhardt.
Next I passed the nearby star 92 Leonis to reach the 450 million light years distant group of "Copeland's Septet"
(Hickson 57): Wonderful, best seen with 335x (6mm Ethos eyepiece), with averted vision all seven components -
ranging from mag 13.6 to 15.2 - could be easily discerned; see also a drawing made by Andreas Domenico with
an 18-inch.

My next starting point was the mag 2 Coma star-cluster Melotte111: While hardly discernible at all from a light
polluted city, it is very conspicuous under an Alpine sky - in the center of the sping sky, between Arcturus, the Big
Dipper and the Lion. The first starhopping trip from here first lead me to the galaxy NGC 4274 - viewing it in the
20-inch gave a clear hint why it's often compared to Saturn. While my main aim was a rectangle of four mag 12 -13
galaxies, named "The Box" (Hickson 61); one is very lengthy, with a low surface brightness. A great object, as is
shown on the drawing sketched by Uwe Glahn, using a 16".
The second trip was much longer, and first lead me to three galaxy condensations around NGC 4015, NGC 4005
and NGC 3987 respectively; especially nice is the region of the edge-on NGC 3987, with additional foreground
stars. Then I went nearly five degrees to the South, to the NGC 4065 galaxy group, including some mag 13 objects,
the brightest of them forming an "L". On returning I collected the "superthin"-galaxy UGC 7321 on the way, averted
vision revealed a thin and ghostly streak of light. The mentioned galaxy clusters of the last two trips have a distance
in the range of 200 million light years.

Moreover I also visited some of the brighter galaxies: All "classical" details of the angular shaped spiral M61 were
readily seen, including the characteristic bent arm on the East. I also saw the bar of NGC 4725, with conspicuous
"anchor arms" situated on both ends. A side trip to the Coma galaxy cluster was very rewarding as well, with various
patches observed all over the field of view. I could also discern details like the central ring of M94 or the single thick
spiral arm in NGC 4618. And last but not least NGC 4449 and M106 - revealing various attractive details as usual .

A special target was the mag 15 supernova in the galaxy NGC 3184; well seen with averted vision as one component
of a close "double star" - the companion being a foreground star of course: Here is an image made by Manuel Gavin.
In the background I surmised the ghostly mirror-reversed "S" of the face-on spiral. The three bright globular clusters
M3, M5 and M13 made a superb impression with 335x - unfortunately we can never show them like that in our guided
evening shows at our Munich astronomy club !

It remained clear to the end, and it was around 4:50 CEST when I finally crawled into my sleeping bag, outdoors on
the near dam. That was a great night, with a rich collection of attractive objects, and occasionally accompanied by a
concert of hooting tawny owls :)

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