18 May 2026

    The sky cleared off nicely tonight. NELM is about 4-5. I can just make out all seven stars of the little dipper. The  There does appear to be some particulates or a little moisture in the air. The skyglow is pretty bright, with bright light domes from Hamilton and Darby. I set up about 22:45MDT and did a SkyAlign using Vega, Polaris, and Spica.

   My first target was M53, a globular cluster in the constellation Coma Berenices. Using the 25mm Plossl eyepiece (81x) it appears as just a small fuzzy ball. Not able to make out any individual stars. There is a small triangular asterism just below and right of the custer in the eyepiece. Adding the 2x barlow gives 162x and I can occasionally make out some indiviual stars on the clusters periphery using averted vision. At this magnification the core is fairly bright and fades out to the edge. One of the things that makes M53 interesting is that it is one of the furtest known globular clusters.NASA shows it as 59,700 lightyears away, and containing about 500,000 stars.

   Next targets were M95 and M96 galaxies in Leo. I went to M95 first, then M96. The two are so close together that I kept switching back and forth and studying the surrounding star fields to be sure I wasn't accidentally looking at the same object! Both were very faint with a slightly brighter core.

    I dropped the hand controller for the mount and it bumped the power plug. That shut off the mount so I had to restart and do an alignment. This time I used Vega, Spica, and Regulus. A note on the first alignment and this one. Both put M53just out of the FOV of the 25mm eyepiece to the right (East). Both galaxies fell in the FOV but just off center.

    Went back to M95 and M96. Using the 25mm eyepiece again I did observe that M96 appeared slightly larger than M95. I tried adding the Barlow but wasn't able to see any more detail and it significantly dimmed the view. 

I tried for Zeta Cancri but had already gone behind the hill. The same for M44. I went back to M53 to see if I could see any more detail, but couldn't.  Observed Iota Cancri for a few minutes, then to M101. It was much larger in the FOV than M95 or M96, It was very faint. I could occasionally get glimpses of structure.  I think the bright sky is definitely affecting the view.

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