October 3, 2010: M101 and not M108

Cold, finally clear night. Back deck. Around 9pm.

Got home at 8:45 and went outside for a quick session. No plan, just a vague idea of some Messier objects in Ursa Major.

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  M97: Centered Beta UMa in the finderscope, and panned over to where I thought M108 would be. Saw a very faint round grey smokey puff – pretty much uniform in intensity. Definitely round. I drew a sketch of the brighter stars around the thing to verify later in Stellarium. NOT M108, but M97, the Owl Nebula!  I way overshot M108 – I’m out of practice!

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  Image via Wikipedia

   

  M101: This is the 3rd tiime trying to spot this galaxy….I centered the finderscope on Delta UMa (Mizar), hopped across the 4 stars: mag 1 –> mag -1.5 –> mag 1 –> mag 0, then panned to where M101 should be, and found a very faint round grey smudge – it was brightest at the center. I drew a sketch of the surrounding stars and verified in Stellarium. This galaxy is dim! Stellarium says it’s magnitude 7.7, but it seems more like mag 10 or 11.

I got cold and went inside. Definitely have to plan for colder weather (sweater, jacket, toque, mittens).