Goals –
1) I had four double stars left on my Astronomical League Double Star
Club list to observe and record, and I planned on splitting 3 of them
and `giving the old college try' to Gamma Virginis – a double star
that is just too close these days to belong on the AL's list of
double stars.

2) Observe and record a dozen galaxies in the Virgo cluster for the
Astronomical League's Hershel 400 list.

Equipment
10" Discovery PDHQ Dobsonian
10mm, 25mm, 40mm Plossel eyepieces
2 x Meade 140 Barlow

Site
American Horse Lake, Oklahoma – 90 minutes west of my home in
suburban OKC

Report

I arrived at 8:30 expecting someone from my club to meet me there.
There was no one there but one late group of fishermen pulling their
boat out. They left quickly and I was left to the wind, the coyotes,
and the stars. The seeing I noticed was quite good. I was optimistic.

It was a little early for both of my goals as the Virgo Cluster and
the doubles that I needed to split were just coming up. So I switched
gears and started working the Hershel galaxies in the back leg and
hip area of Leo around M65 and M66. I had seen the thin edge on
spiral next to them but no others before. And since I had less than
100 of my 400 objects recorded there were many options. Besides, I
remain a little afraid of the confusion and frustration that awaits
me deep inside the Virgo cluster of galaxies.

In my first hour I was quite successful recording nine Hershel
galaxies that I had not seen before and seeing a handful of other
even dimmer (presumably Hershel II galaxies) in the mean time.

NGC 3628
This is the long thin edge on spiral that can easily be seen in the
same FOV with M66 and M65 and thought it was a good place to begin.
It has a definite brightening to the center and is arranged
perpendicular to the orientation of M65 and 66. It's a lovely example
of an edge on.

NGC 3593
A small dim oblong spiral galaxy about 1 degree ESE of M66 & 65. It
reminded me of a small M94.

NGC 3810
A round galaxy – fairly dim SW of Denebola. It showed quite a bit of
structure for being as dim as it was with a clearly defined core and
outward dimming.

NGC 3686
A dim patch with central brightening – it must be a face on spiral. I
found this one with three other even dimmer galaxies in the same FOV –
NGC 3684, 3691, and 3681 were tough to see but possible with it.

NGC 3626
A dim `star like' appearance is given here with a circular nebulosity
around it. It reminded me of the Eskimo Nebula.

NGC 3607 & NGC 3608
A nice pair of brighter galaxies that show up together. They are both
round and easy to see. Averted vision brings out the outer arm areas
of these two mag 9 galaxies.

NGC 3655
A tiny, dim, circular patch that required averted vision to see at
all even under good conditions.

NGC 3640
A fairly bright circular galaxy. The central core brightened and fell
off in magnitude cleanly and sharply. It was nice to see an
elliptical galaxy after all the spirals I had seen in a row.


Double Stars
By 10pm it was getting to be time to hunt down those double stars I
needed and I moved my scope out from the tree cover that was
shielding me from the wind but offered a good overhead view of Leo to
hunt a wider sky.

N Hydrae
A nice pair of widely split blue BB's that reminded me of Gamma Aries
only wider. This lies close to Corvus.

24 Coma Berenices
Why is it that I ALWAYS seem to get lost in Bernice's hair? I got
disoriented and took 30 minutes to find this beautiful pair. The
primary is Gold, and the Secondary was Blue. They looked like Alberio.

32 Camelopardis
This, my 99th double star turned out to be a very pleasant surprise.
At 89 degrees north, it is closer to Polaris than any of the other
Little Dipper asterism stars and is easy to find on a clear country
night. I saw a pair of pretty bluish white stars that were widely
separated and easy on the eyes.

Gamma Virginis
This is the star I dreaded. If you have been following it, you know
that it is a highly elliptical pair that takes about 170 years to
orbit. Well 2005 will be their closest approach, and the cataloged
separation of 3.5 arc seconds is long gone. It's more like 0.6 or 0.7
now. I have known for some time that if I break this pair it will be
on a very steady night because it will push my scope's ability.

I even bought a fairly nice Barlow from Meade specifically for this
purpose. I have tried a number of times and failed each time to break
this pair as they get closer. I figured I would do my best under good
conditions like this and if that failed I would hope to be out one
night with somebody with a big refractor or an Obsession and ask them
if I could use it.

Well my first view at 307 power was of something oblong running east –
west. Hmmm.... it was a little windy and the image bounced around a
bit. I continued to push my scope westward to continue to look. It
stayed oblong. I caught a couple glimpses of two objects. Was it
seeing failure? Was it the bouncing?

I decided to look at another star in the same fashion. I chose
Vindameatrix or Epsilon Virginis.

It was round, and stayed round. I watched it for some time. It never
became oblong. I never saw two, no matter the condition or how long I
looked.

I went back to Porrima (Gamma Virginis). It was still an oblong
golden object that bounced a bit as I followed it. Then a moment of
calmness. I saw two distinct objects about the same magnitude. Both
gold, and practically on top of each other. They were east and west
of each other just like the charts said they should be. I drew my
picture that looks like a figure eight. I was happy. That was 100 and
I had worried that I might not finish this one for years!

I celebrated by spending the next half-hour at the starting point for
the Virgo cluster back at Epsilon Virginis. The new Sky & Telescope
(May 2003) has a nice article about this area and I brought it out
and saw Sigma 1689 which is a lovely double star of yellow and blue.
Very close to it are two Hershel galaxies, which I recorded.

NGC 4762
A nice edge on spiral that is long, lovely, and quite thin. There was
a very clear core brightening and drop off with a sharp definition
and a distinct flattening of the spiral arms out away from the core.
Quite a nice galaxy.

NGC 4754
In the same FOV was a smaller rounder galaxy. It was almost star like
in appearance and not quite round but the two together made a nice
contrast like Mutt and Jeff.

By this time it was midnight and I was getting tired and a little
confused, so I packed it up rather than fight the cold, fatigue, and
natural confusion of the Virgo cluster. All in all I was a pretty
happy dude. Seeing both components of Gamma Virginis was a great high
for me, and I have finally started on the Hershel spring galaxies, of
which there are about 180 listed out of the 400 objects so this is
the main hurdle to completion.

I returned home tired but happy

Jeff