[LVAS] FW: May Observer's Challenge

[roger ivester]

> From: scfrench at nycap.rr.com
> To: drivester at hotmail.com
> Subject: May Observer's Challenge
> Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:03:01 -0500
> 
> This month's Observing Challenge was for NGC 4631 and its little companion
> NGC 4627. However, I've always enjoyed viewing these two together with the
> NGC 4656/57 pair, so I decided to sketch the combination.
> 
> I first logged these galaxies in 1985 while looking through the 36-inch
> Cassegrain under beautifully dark skies at MIRA (Monterey Institute for
> Research in Astronomy). Needless to say, they were gorgeous.
> 
> This time, I used my 130mm f/6.3 refractor at my semirural home in upstate
> New York. The sky is hardly pristine so close to Schenectady. A light
> pollution map places me in an orange zone, but I have the decided advantage
> of no glare from local lights.
> 
> The seeing and transparency high in the sky were good during my sketch, but
> only fair at the altitude of the targets around 10 PM EST. I chose a
> magnification of 117x with a wide-angle eyepiece. This is highest power at
> which all four galaxies would share the field of view.
> 
> NGC 4631 is very, very pretty and highly textured. It's brightest at its
> widest part, which is a little east of center, and along most of its
> northern flank. A faint star is plainly visible resting on the Whale's back.
> NGC 4627 can be seen with direct vision but shows up better with averted.
> 
> NGC 4656 is considerably fainter and has two bright patches, one at the
> northeast end and a much larger one northeast of center, both mottled. The
> latter has bright spot on its west-southwestern edge. The galaxy's hook and
> NGC 4657 are faintly visible with averted vision. 
> 
> More and more stars are popped out as the galaxies slowly climbed the dome
> of the sky, but I only added a few of them to the sketch. The sketch is
> mirror-reversed and done with sketching pencils on a blank 5 x 8 index card.
> I used Microsoft Picture Manager to change the image to white on black and
> made small adjustments to the contrast and brightness so that all four
> galaxies would show on my monitor.
> 
> I wanted a closer look, so I boosted the power to 164x, but the galaxies no
> longer shared the field. NGC 4627 was then easily visible with direct
> vision as a small oval tipped north-northeast. NGC 4657 was also a bit more
> apparent and elongated north-northwest to south-southeast. 
 		 	   		  
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