|
Date of Observation ...... Instrument ............... Magnification ............ Location ................. Observer ................. Skies .................... |
April 27, 2020 18" f/5 dobsonian 71x Fredericksburg, VA (light pollution map) Eric David started clear, increasing upper atmosphere haze, high clouds, increasingly hazy/high clouds, four day old Moon in west |
I returned to ο Virginis for the star-hop to this galaxy group, going from ο east to a pair of stars, then southeast to another, east-southeast to another, then turned south-southwest to the final group of three stars. NGC 4233 makes a water-jar like pattern with those three stars, but on this night of increasing clouds and haze, it was difficult to see. A dim star is in the area that also makes the water-jar pattern, and I could barely see 4233 as a faint fuzzy object next to the dim star. Going southwest from there, a pair of stars makes a triangle with 4224, and I was able to see the galaxy as a slightly non-stellar object at the correct position. NGC 4235 makes a longer triangle on the other side of those two stars, and in this case, I was able to detect that the faint smudge was notably elongated, just like in the images. These galaxies are not very dim (all brighter than mag 13) so I need to revisit them from a dark site to see if I can detect any structure. |