Bright Skies and DSOs 2May and 7 May 2026

   

 I am trying to take advantage of as many clear nights this year as I can. That doesn't always mean they are the best for observing, but just getting out and trying to learn and see more is very gratifying in itself.

2 May 2026 

2 May was a day past the full Moon. I was curious about how bright it actually made the sky so I checked out the Starry Sky kit from the library to use the SQM (Sky Quality Meter). These are made by Unihedron and measure the sky in magnitude/arcsecond. It is an objective measurement as opposed to the subjective Bortle Scale that is widely used by amateur astronomers. The SQM uses the same magnitude scale that is used for stars. Therefore, the higher the number, the less bright the sky background is. The brighter the background sky glow, the lower the number. At 22:15 MDT the Moon was  about 40 degrees above the horizon. Standing in a spot shaded from moonlight by a tree, I got an average reading of  19.17 with the SQM aimed at zenith. Out of the shadow the reading was 19.13 at zenith. There were a few scattered high clouds.In the past I have got readings of 20.82 to 20.92 on nights with the Moon below the horizon. I need to start a log and try to regularly record these numbers to track how my local sky is changing. I had to return the kit, so will try again next month.

 

7 May 2026

    I started out the night viewing Jupiter again. I keep hoping for good seeing and better detail. Once again the 25mm Plossl (81x) eyepiece gave the steadiest view. The 13mm eyepiece (156x)was usable but had about Antoniadi III seeing. The seeing with the 8mm eyepiece (254x) was pretty bad, couldn't really get it to stay focused. I observed for about 20 minute and would occasionally catch fleeting glimpses of the north polar band. At one point I may have caught a festoon in the south equatorial band.

     Even though the Moon isn't up yet the skyglow is significant. Humidity is only 41% and temperature 60ºF but there is enough junk in the air that the light dome from the town about 18 miles north, is brighter and larger than usual. The same for the smaller town a mile south.

     Except for Jupiter, I had planned a list of targets using Turn Left At Orion (TLAO) and Stellarium. After looking at Jupiter, I decided to start with a brighter globular cluster, M12, because of sky conditions.I did a SkyAlign and slewed to M12 at about 23:10MDT. This is a fairly large globular cluster not far from M13 in Hercules and even closer to M10 in Ophiuchus.. Though they are close, M12 is actually just into Ophiuchus. I started with the 25mm eyepiece and added the 2x Barlow giving an effective 12.5mm eyepiece for 162x. It was fairly low in the sky and appeared as a large fuzzy ball with occasional glimpses of individual stars in the body.  With it being low in the sky I tried turning the diagonal so the eyepiece was horizontal. This was so I would be able to sit on the stool and sketch. However, I am not used to this orientation and was guessing about directions. The sky is bright enough that many of the field stars are washed out. Looking at TLAO later I'm pretty sure I marked them right on the sketch.

 

Also known as the Gumball Cluster, M12 is about 25,000 light years away, 70 light years across, and contains about 200,000 stars. Inverted sketch

The mean visual magnitude of its 25 brightest stars is 13.97. This is just inside the theoretical limit of my 8" SCT (Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope). That explains why I could only make out a few individual stars in the cluster.

   The next targets were the galaxies M58 and M59 at about 23:41MDT.are both fairly small galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. M58 appears a little more oval shaped with a core that is discernibly brighter than the surrounding halo. The core is as bright with averted vision as some of the fainter stars in the surrounding FOV (Field of View). M59 is very similar. Both were viewed using the 25mm Plossl. Their appearance is so similar and they are close enough together that I kept going back and forth looking at small details in the FOV to be sure I wasn't accidentally going back to the same one! They were so small and dim that I didn't try to sketch them. M58 is a barred spiral galaxy about 62 million light years away. M59 is about 62 million light years away

 The next target was M64, the Black Eye galaxy. NASA places this galaxy about 17 million light years away. This one has a brighter core and a larger halo than M58 and M59. One reason this galaxy is scientifically interesting is that the outer section rotates in the opposite direction from the center. This may have been caused by a collision with another galaxy.

 

Sketch of M64, inverted color

M64, original sketch before inverting in GIMP

     Next target was M94. This is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is about 15 million light years away and has an approximate diameter of 30 thousand light years. Using the 25mm Plossl with the 2x Barlow it appears as a distinct oval shape with avisible bright core. I sketched it at about 00:25

    My last target was M5, the Rose Cluster. The sky was starting to get brighter as we are getting close to Moon rise so I wasn't expecting too much. When I hit "GoTo" on the controller it was almost dead center in the 25mm eyepiece. The view was amazing, and adding the 2x Barlow it almost took my breath away. The bright cluster of stars shined like little diamonds and a trail of stars led off to the lower left of the FOV. If I was more skilled I would have tried to sketch it but the shear number of visible stars was overwhelming.

M5 is thought to be one of the oldest globular clusters, about 13 million years old. I contains at least 100.000 stars. 

Just a quick note on my sketching process. My current logbook is a Canson 5.5"x8.5"  sketchbook. I use a compass to draw circles, and make my sketches as "negatives" at the eyepiece. See the original sketch of M64. I will typically use an HB mechanical pencil, 2B or 4B pencils, and blending stubs. I take a picture using my phone camera, send it to my laptop and invert it using GIMP. I need to practice making better points for stars, as well as a lot of other skills. I also need to start taking better photos of my images to save digitally.