NGC 5128 (Centaurus A) from city: 25/5
Normally I never bother to try seeing galaxies from my backyard, given that we're only 3-4km from the centre of Melbourne & they're low surface brightness objects. The light pollution just drowns them out. But on Saturday evening it was quite transparent & with NGC 5128 at the zenith, I thought it was worth the hunt.
The outcome was that by pointing my 14" at the exact right spot and moving it, I was just able to spot it with averted vision, including the dark lane. But it was seriously difficult to see, despite being 8th mag. By comparison, it is normally easy in my 9x50 finderscope from a dark sky site. Oh well, at least it can be done (barely).
Eyepiece used was a Pentax XW 10, which has excellent light throughput.
|