Hi everyone
,
It was a beautifull clear day yesterday and it turned out to be a beautifull clear night aswell.I thought what a great way to the end the year with a great observing session.
So, while waiting for it to get dark I looked at some old faves then once dark enough I think 9-30 .I decided to go for the faint stuff,mainly Galaxies. Here are my notes-
M33-It was quite difficult to find having low surface brightness.Once found it resembled a diffuse sphere of light,quite large also.It was faint.After a couple of careful minuted observing i started to see arms manifest,I saw one arm arcing towards the west and another arcing towards the east.the west arm had a big bright patch to the south of the core,Which is probably a HII region.The brightest feature referred to as ngc 604 I think I may have seen as a Bright fuzzy patch on the end of the eastern arm.As I was observing it a plane flew straight through the galaxy.It was awesome.I enjoyed observing this galaxy as it is the first face on spiral galaxy that I have been able to discern arms in.
M1-The crab nebula was surprisingly easy to find only a degree away form zeta tauri and it was quite bright.It Was elongated From NW-SE.I think I could discern the crabs claws on the eastern side
.This was a fun nebula to observe to think that i was viewing with my eyes a supernova remnant of a supernova that was witnessed by man, Awesome.
NGC 1365-This was easy to find and was bright.I couldn't believe my eyes I was looking straight at a barred spiral galaxy.I could see the shape almost straight away when I popped in the 9mm tmb.The bright bar had the bright core in the middle and was elongated W-E the arms were in the direction of N-S The shape resembled exactly the picture of this magnificent galaxy.This has to be one of the most awesome objects I have seen through my telescope.I then went to the nearby fornax cluster and spied out about 5 bright galaxies with some fainter ones in the middle.
Though the mosquitoes were annoying, I very much enjoyed myself on this night and it was a great way to end the year.
Happy new Year to all
Cheers Orestis
