I wasn’t expecting to do any observing tonight since the Dark Sky Chart had no lovin’ in sight, but at 9pm it seemed pretty good out so I set out the scope to cool off. At 9:3o I headed out – there was a thin mist or cloud cover so the seeing was not great, but I could see the stars so I tried. It was a little above zero so quite comfortable.
I had a few galaxies planned. I started with M61 in Virgo. I found Eta-Vir in the finder, then panned about 5 degrees at a right angle from the line that Gamma, Eta, and Beta-Virgo form (panning to the side on which Denebola lies). Just past the brightest star in the area, and saw the very faint roundish smokey thing which is M61 through a 6″ Newtonian and a 25mm EP. Very faint.
M61 - Image via Wikipedia
I spent another 45 minutes trying to find M98 but the thin haze was getting worse so I packed it in.
Oh yeah, I looked at Saturn for a bit. I might have seen the Iapetus moon – I’ll take a better look when the seeing is better.
Deeby's Astronomy Log 