|
Good Morning all,
Andrew Murrell and I started going through the Arp galaxies together a few years ago in the 25" Obsession. As Andrew Lockwood mentions some of them are a tough get in a 25" telescope and I doubt you could do them all in anything much smaller. We didnt get all that far into the list because the scope had to go back to Peter Read at SDM telescopes for some running repairs and I subsequently moved to Kiama which means the only chance I get to observe with Andrew Murrell these days is when we head up to Coonababrabran for a week each year, or at IISAC or some other Star Party and we are doing other things at those events.
What takes the time is that most of these targets are not listed in the Computer software databases and you need to use finder charts and starhop. My new house in Kiama has pretty decent skies in my yard (Mag 6+). I am on 3/4 of an acre on the top of a hill, 1km out of town, with trees all around the property. I have a poor view of all horizons because of the trees, but I have 360 degree access to anything above 30 degrees elevation which works beautifully for me, as I always try to set my program to observe targets in the 45 degree to 80 degree altitude range.
Once I get the new house sorted out I am hoping to set up a list of all the Southern Arp galaxies for uploading as a user defined catalogue to Argo Navis. My largest scope is only an 18", and I will see how many I can get in that scope using the Argo. Once I have the list made up I would be happy to share it with other Argo users.
Cheers,
John B
|