Well, Sat night promised to be quite nice, and after some ugly cloudage during the day, the evening cleared up nicely. With that, I lugged out the scope and all my stuff, and began observing at 7pm. Seeing was crap as usual. Saturn broke down at 200x, continuing the theme of this year. However, transparency was up there so was looking like a good night for a few galaxies. Because of the crud seeing, focus was not very crisp at all at 267x, even the 167x view was noticably worse than what I'm accustomed to after the last couple of years. Nevertheless, this was of little consequence for galaxy hunting. The session was destroyed after mere 1.5 hours by Melbourne Cloud, and after 45 minutes of waiting it looked to be only getting thicker so I threw in the towel.
Scope: 12" F/4.4 truss dob
Time: 7pm-8:40pm
Seeing: 2/10
Transparency: 4/5
Dew: None
Temp: 9C
UGC 8322
GX, Virgo, RA 13 15 01, Dec +12 43 28 , Size= 1.3x0.3' , Mag B= 14.8
A Faint, barely suspected smudge at 167x, but switching to the 5mm EP at 267x improved the view dramatically. The galaxy was now relatively easily identified, showing slight elongation approx N-S, forming a triangle with a pair of mag 13 stars to the north and SE. The sighting was confirmed using wikisky. This galaxy lies approx 350 million light years distant.
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NGC 4727
GX, Corvus, RA 12 50 57, Dec -14 19 59 , Size= 1.4x1.1' , Mag V= 11.9
Brightest of several galaxies in the area. Other objects observed include IC3831, IC3827 and MCG-02-33-017. NGC 4727 and its companion NGC 4724 appear to be twice as distant, despite being somewhat brighter than the three aformentioned galaxies, with a distance of approx 345 million light years compared to about 180 million for the IC and MCG objects. Fairly bright and diffuse at 167x, hints of elongation but not clear. 267x confirms elongation as SE-NW. NGC 4724 lies less than 1' to the west.
NGC 4724
GX, Corvus, RA 12 50 53, Dec -14 19 56 , Size= 1.1x0.8' , Mag V= 12.7
Stellar core, hint of surrounding haze at 167x, increasing mag to 267x provided a slightly better view with the haze more obvious and hints of E-W elongation. A fairly bright but tiny object. Located less than 1' W of NGC 4724.
IC 3831
GX, Corvus, RA 12 51 18, Dec -14 34 26, Size= 1.4x0.8' , Mag B= 13.8
Located about 15' SE of NGC 4724. Spotted at 167x, but at 267x it appeared as a compact high surface brightness galaxy, slightly condensed towards the core with hints of N-S elongation. This galaxy, along with IC 3827 and MCG-2-33-017 is not gravitationally bound to NGC 4727/4, as the latter lie roughly twice as far despite appearing to share common ground from our vantage.
IC 3827
GX Corvus, RA 12 50 52, Dec -14 29 34, Size= 0.9x0.7, Mag B= 14.05
Located 10' due south of NGC 4727. Very faint, barely seen at 267x, as a non-descript low surface brightness dust mote.
MCG-2-33-017
GX, Corvus, RA 12 50 05, Dec -14 44 00, Size= 2.3x2.2', Mag B=12.9
This is a surprising object, forming an extremely close "pair" with a mag 12 star just 25 arc seconds to the south! Easily spotted at 167x as a patch of low surface brightness haze, but increasing mag to 267x showed a tight diffuse core surrounded by a low surface brightness circular halo. DSS images show a face on spiral that resembles the ripples in a pond when one throws a stone in it rather than a "traditional" spiral with arms.
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ESO 269-57
GX, Centaurus, RA 13 10 04, Dec -46 26 14, Size= 3.4x2.4' , Mag B= 12.5
Been wanting to observe this ring galaxy since reading about it in one of Paddy's obs reports. He reported sighting the ring, but from my location I could not see it. Still, at 267x the core was bright and roughly circular, with a pair of 12.5 mag stars located 1.5' SE (which mark the ring location according to DSS images) and a fainter Mag ~13 star is located just 45 arc seconds W of the core. The galaxy is set in a lovely field.
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Btw, here is proof of the crap seeing: this jet would've been flying against 200km/h winds atleast
