Wednesday May 17th Observing Report

Well, the clouds finally parted and allowed me a good night of observing this past Wednesday. The seeing and transparency were average and the sky was cloudless.

The first target of the night was M87. This is a large galaxy at the heart of the Virgo Super Cluster of Galaxies. The galaxy was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781. It is classified as a Super Elliptical galaxy. 

The galaxy itself is pretty non-remarkable for the most part. It appears as a bright oval with a spot in the center where the core of the galaxy is. There are at least three other galaxies visible in the frame. Two to the left of M87 which are NGC4476 and 4478. The other visible galaxy is behind a bright star at the top of the frame directly above M87.

   As I was watching the stack of frames come in from the camera, I zoomed in on the image that was forming by the stacking of the individual frames, I noticed a bright blueish streak on M87 at the 8 o'clock position. I knew from reading that M87 had a relativistic jet streaming from the black hole at its center, but never in my imagination did I think it would be possible to see it in an 8-inch telescope! The image to the right is a zoomed in and cropped image of the photo above with the jet visible.

The next target was M5, a nice globular cluster in the constellation of Serpens. This cluster was discovered in 1702 by German astronomer Gottfried Kirch.

 Globs are one of my favorite objects to observe. On a really good night you can resolve individual stars right down into the core of the cluster.

Next on the list were a trio of galaxies in Virgo, NGC 5360, 5363 and 5364. NGC 5364 is the brightest and is at the lower right in the image. It looks like there is a bright star superimposed on the left hand side of the galaxy.  NGC5363 is a spiral at the top of the image. You can just make out its spiral structure. Lastly, NGC5360 is a faint (Mag 14) edge on galaxy to the left of NGC 5363. You have to look hard to see it, but the little streak is visible. 

The last target for the night was M57. This planetary nebula is bright and easy to find. You can see the little 15th magnitude star at the center of the ring which provide the energy to make the gas ring glow.

It was 2 o'clock and dew was starting to come in pretty heavy, so I threw the switch and rolled the roof back on the observatory. 

Clear skies

rw