Galaxies and More, 9 April 2026

I first went out about 21:15MDT to see what the sky was like since the forecast wasn't too promising.  I thought I saw a possible Aurora to the north and northwest. I got the night vision scope out to see and it turned out to just be skyglow on some thin clouds.  It was about an hour after sunset and several hours until moonrise. The sky glows from Hamilton (about 16 miles north) and Darby (1 mile south) were quite a bit larger than usual. There were also high thin clouds to the west but Jupiter was still clear of them. The stars weren't twinkling very much at zenith, but transparency wasn't very good. NELM was about 4. Haze made larger than usual halos around lights on the truss company just under half a mile away and on lights in town a mile away. I would rate the transparency about 3/5. I decided to try it anyway.

A quick note about those lights. They are south of me and the walls of my observatory are 5ft tall so I can get as close to the southern horizon as practical for this location. Normally when seated at the telescope they are not in my sight. But if I stand up and forget to be careful, they get me. I need to rig a light block that can be raised for that area.

I got set up about  21:45MDT. The first target was Jupiter.  just keep trying to see if I can get more detail on it. I went all the way to the 8mm Plossl, 254x, but the view was too unsteady, probably Antoniadi V! Th best view was with the 13mm Plossl, 156x. Seeing through that was probably A III. I still had trouble keeping it in good focus with any eyepiece. Was able to make out the two main bands again but not much else. 

I didn't have any targets preplanned since this was a spur of the moment session. There were several galaxies that I have heard of  I wanted to try for while they were up. Some of these might b fairly low in the south or getting close to going behind trees to the west. I started looking in Turn Left At Orion.I was able to observe some and I sketched four. Three of those were in the same FOV with the 25mm eyepiece. Because of the bright sky and haze, these were all very faint "grey fuzzies". 

 

I did a Skyalign after looking at Jupiter. Targets were consistently in the right side of the FOV for the 25mm eyepiece or just outside it. The first target was NGC 3628 at about 22:25MDT. This is the third galaxy of the "Leo Triplet". The other two are M65 and M66 which I observed last time out. I tried to see NGC 3628 last time, but it was too faint. It's distinguished by its long narrow shape, due to being seen edge on. It is about 100,000 light years across, and 35,000,000 light years away.

 Shifted to M105, another galaxy in Leo at 22:40MDT. It is part of the Leo I group. Two other members of this group were visible in the FOV. NGC 3384 was easy to make out, while NGC 3389 could just barely be made out. I tried using the 12mm Plossl, but the view was just too dim. Even the stars in the field were too dim, so I went back to the 25mm eyepiece.

Next was M95 in Leo. It too was fairly faint but I could distinguish a brighter core surrounded by a hazy halo. I would like to come back to these galaxies in clearer skies and try to get more detail and sketch them.

 I decided to try for some double stars to test how sharp my view was. With the sky conditions I'm not sure how good a test it will actually be.

At 23:04MDT I slewed to Polaris, just as a quick check. It is an easy double to split with the 25mm with a separation of 18". My first real target then was Porrima, also known as Gamma Virginis. 

Quick sketch of Porrima in both 25mm and 8mm eyepieces

 I couldn't really split them with the 25mm eyepiece (81x). With averted vision you could tell it was a double but couldn't really split them. The 8mm (254x) split them but it was very hard to keep them in focus. Lots of fuzz and spikes jumping around, unable to get stars to a pinpoint. I tried brought a nearby single star to the center of the FOV, and had the same issues, so I suspect seeing is the problem. I slewed to Pollux (not a double!) with the same unsteady focusing results.

Castor naturally came next. While observing it the seeing just suddenly snapped in place! The wavering and spikes stopped and the stars became pinpoint. This came as a huge relief to me to be able to have some evidence that my struggles with observing details were in fact partly due to seeing.

Castor appeared as two distinct stars. They are about 4.4" apart. It is actually a six star system. Castor A and B are orbited by a third star, Castor C that is 72" away. All three are actually spectroscopic doubles. That means they are too close together to resolve in a telescope and can only be detected by their spectra.

 After observing Castor I packed up. High clouds were moving in and the temperature was starting to drop. No real dew or frost was visible yet, but I decided to beat it.