10x50 Galaxies Observing Report !

[Amar Sharma]

Attn: Akarsh & all interested Deep-sky observers

Yesterday, intending to practice for some Messiers with a 25x100 I headed out to the light-polluted skies of our old observing site Sivanhalli. Though I could not access the 25x100's, I ended up with my 10x50 binocs itself. I decided to get even with them, and test their deep potential for atleast a 3rd time. Note, it was all handheld for objects, with me lying and looking upwards! Later on it got very windy that I succumbed to cold without a single winter-wear and could not try later objects other than galaxies :-(

I am simply stupefied at what amazing capability a 50mm binocular has, and if you have a 'decent level' of experience...you wont believe that! I see if some of these observations even raise an 'air of skepticism', I have a solution for clearing that off.

I was out with Cambridge Star Atlas which is a "coarse" non-detailed finder chart upto 6th mag stars. I used the binoculars to peer into the location and saw 9th mag stars. Whatever I saw, I drew their fields and came home and checked in the software.

Sky condition - Overwhelming light pollution in North, and East-West horizons! Only Zenith was little better but still not black. NELM (Naked-Eye Limiting Magnitude) could be 5.5 at zenith. In all these attempts, my extreme limit for spotting a star with is 10x50 aperture is only 10.00 mag.

I started with the 9.0 mag NGC 2903 in Leo which was visible as a slight elongation, not hard to see. The star field drawn matches the binoc view as confirmed in software later. This includes the very faint 9.8 mag star just above it.

Somewhere near star 36-Leo I discovered a wonderful eye-catching pearly-string of stars, many of them (hard to count, maybe 6) lined up, which instantaneously reminded me of a picture of the fragmented pearly-chain of Comet Shoemaker-Levy :-)

Next I served the M95, M96 and M105 region. Rated insanely faint by me, these were visible partly, for the 2nd time. What happened is after prolonged staring, I could see 2 adjacent fuzzes with difficulty, thinking them to be M95 & M96 pair (9.7 & 9.3 mag). It appears that I was infact looking for M105 (9.3 mag) and intermittently something beside which I am not sure. M95 & 96 were somewhere away, and maybe I attempted to sense it too. (Remember I was handholding the 10x50s!)

Next targets were M66 and region. This one at mag 8.9 was easily visible, aided in brightness by the stars embedded within it. Neighbor M65 (9.3 mag) was a fraction smaller and a little fainter. I stared at the neighbor NGC 3628 impossible-with-10x50-galaxy (9.5 mag) (which's faint even though a scope) But obviously nothing there! Only hallucinations perceived by a 10th mag star. I also succeeded in spotting the 9.00 mag NGC 3521 in Leo (Akarsh used to talk about this at times). The star field drawn was right.

Having succeeded on this shopping spree of brighter of Messiers, I decided to confront my ability and play around by selecting random faint NGC's. Needless to say, I saw only hallucinations, for objects requiring only a small telescope to observe! What I funnily attempted in vain were - NGC 4361 planetary nebula (10.90 mag) in Corvus, galaxy NGC 3640 (10.40 mag), galactic pair NGC 3166 / 3169 (10.4 + 10.20 mag) I had to stop and could not try the next genre of objects like clusters in the good Southern sky, due to the wind chill.

Even though this list is small and report appears larger, I can extend to mean the list would have gone more if - skies were darker, binocs were mounted. Lesson learnt would be - Spend a couple years observing and honing up your "averted vision" and you will be amazed that your Rod-Cells in the eyes capture few photons unknowingly! I am boosted to have a deep 10x50 session alone! ;-)

This encourages me for using my 25x100 better for faint Messiers tomorrow! :-) Thanks. Amar A. Sharma

[Udayan Pandharipande]

Hi,

great report!

I've learnt from this report not to underestimate a 10X50's abilities!

 

Regards,

Udayan

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[Amar Sharma]

Thanks for reminding Udayan. I forgot to make a mention of Virgo Cluster. I tried yet once again to begin my tour in here. But I did not had a good time with the starting markers M98 and M99. I tried going for M100 the faint face on spiral, however may or may not have seen it. It's actually pretty hard without practice to track these galaxies with a 10x50. Next time, in much darker skies.

---

From: Udayan Pandharipande <uday...@gmail.com>
To: b-...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, March 12, 2010 1:52:06 PM
Subject: Re: [-BAS-] 10x50 Galaxies Observing Report !

[Rasik Mhatre]

A question from a newbie.

 

If you can see all this with a 10X50 binocs I should be able to do the same with a 76mm Dobs which has max magnification of 75X except for the ease of handling?

 

Right?!

Rasik Mhatre
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[Akarsh Simha]

> A question from a newbie.
>
> If you can see all this with a 10X50 binocs I should be able to do the
> same with a 76mm Dobs which has max magnification of 75X except for the
> ease of handling?

Try to reduce the magnification to about 30x (or even lesser). While
75x is awesome for viewing planets, it might be a little too much on
faint-but-large deep-sky objects through a 3" telescope.

You should be able to see them easily in that case.

A thumb rule (that works usually) to calculate the best magnification
for observation is 10 times the aperture in inches, which in your case
would be 30x. However, this is ideal for seeing detail. If you want to
be able to just detect objects (which is a good start) I recommend
stepping below 30x.

Regards
Akarsh

[Udayan Pandharipande]

hey, er... could you see the Markarian chain with these 10X50s (as u were huting down galaxies)?

 

 

-Udayan-

[Udayan Pandharipande]

sorry,- (as u were hunting galaxies)

[Amar Sharma]

Not this time. But generally other times have spotted a couple fainites in there. M84 & M86 very hard but M87 manageable. To achieve most, you would need very dark skies, the Markarian's Chain in this "Bowl of Virgo" overhead / zenith to get the faintest object rendered visible, and a firm mounting of your binocs, along with good dark adaptation.

It should not be hard to trace these 9th mag fuzzies then. I am not sure how many though. Would like to test this from a dark place in Western Ghats, also comparing with 20x80's.

---

From: Udayan Pandharipande <uday...@gmail.com>
To: b-...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Fri, March 12, 2010 7:10:18 PM

Subject: Re: [-BAS-] 10x50 Galaxies Observing Report !