OR: Two nights in Glenn County: 03/16/2026
Muriel Dulieu Holzer
First night in Glenn County
On February 16, I joined Steve Gottlieb and his 24” Starstructure, and Jim Molinari and his 22” UC Obsession, in Glenn County for two nights of observing. I set up my new 18” Obsession with a Telrad and PiFinder v3. The weather was warm, the sky was clear, the frogs were loudly croaking and a few cows were sparsely dispersed on the surrounding hills. It felt very calm. As darkness settled, the universe’s vastness and beauty dissolved all my pains and worries into a sense of wonder.
I started the evening by looking into Jim’s 22”. I was curious about his telescope as it is one of the large Dobsonians known for being notably lightweight for its size.
NGC 1514 is a planetary nebula with an unusually bright central star, about magnitude 9.4 that is part of a binary system. An unseen, hot companion is actually responsible for forming and ionizing the planetary. The nebula itself is fairly large, around 2 arcminutes across, with a magnitude of around 11. It lies roughly 1500 light-years away based on GAIA parallax.
We looked at NGC 1514 with an Ethos 17 mm eyepiece. The bright central star stood out immediately, surrounded by a round mottled glow of medium brightness. 
William Herschel discovered NGC 1514 in 1790 and famously declared it proof that not all nebulae were unresolved star clusters. This object convinced him that true nebulosity existed in space. The prevailing view before that was that all known nebulae, including the ones in the Messier catalog published earlier, were star clusters too distant to resolve. The knowledge that it was ionized gas came later in the 19th century with spectroscopy.
Thor’s Helmet is a famous nebula that looks like its namesake, with two wings on its sides. It is in reality a Wolf-Rayet bubble, a shell of gas sculpted by the intense stellar winds from a central Wolf-Rayet star known as WR 7. Wolf-Rayet stars are among the hottest and most massive stars known. WR 7 is extremely luminous, losing mass at a rapid rate, and likely destined to go supernova in the near astronomical future. It lies roughly 12,000 light-years away with an angular size of around 8 x 6 arcminutes for the main bubble (about 28 light-years across) and a magnitude of 11.5.
The shape of the bubble results from stellar winds pushing into an interstellar medium of uneven density. The bubble expands faster where the density is lower, creating the wings. On one side it runs into a molecular cloud dense enough to act as a wall and block its expansion almost entirely. The star's own motion through the medium adds further asymmetry.
In Steve’s 24” with a 21 mm Ethos eyepiece without a filter, I could see the shape of the helmet. For reference, North is at the bottom of the view in the eyepiece and East is to the right. The bottom of the main bubble and the top wing looked brighter, while the bottom wing looked fainter. The right boundary appeared more diffuse, and to the right lay a faint little patch of nebulosity. The main bubble had uneven brightness with a concentration of stars at its bottom.
I looked at it again in my 18” and could barely see it without a filter. Adding an O III filter to my Baader Hyperion 8-24 mm zoom eyepiece allowed me to see it well. The view was similar to what I had seen in the 24”, but more compact. The wings appeared as faint nebulosities extending left from the upper and lower right, each roughly the same size as the brighter central bubble. The left edge of the bubble looked sharper. 
M108 is a barred spiral galaxy seen nearly edge-on, roughly 45 million light-years away and fairly large at about 8x2 arcminutes. Its magnitude is around 10. It has no prominent central bulge, which likely indicates a relatively quiet merger history. A supermassive black hole lies at its center but shows little activity. M108 is classified as a starburst galaxy, containing star-forming regions, dust clouds, stellar clumps, and an unusually large number of X-ray point sources, likely black holes and neutron stars in binary systems actively accreting material from their companion stars.
In the 18”, I could see an elongated glow, soft but visible, slightly slanted with a foreground star near the middle and two more on the left. 
M66 is a member of the Leo Triplet alongside M65 and NGC 3628. All three galaxies are gravitationally interacting, though M66 and M65 are the closest pair. M65 looks remarkably undisturbed given its proximity to M66, while NGC 3628 shows the most structurally dramatic evidence of interaction with its tidal tail and warped disk. M66 itself shows significant internal structural distortion: its core is offset and its spiral arms are uneven. These disturbances were likely caused by a close encounter, perhaps a few hundred million years ago.
M66 is an intermediate spiral, between a pure spiral and a barred spiral, located roughly 35 million light-years away with an angular size of around 9x4 arcminutes and a magnitude around 8.9. The interactions between the galaxies have triggered elevated star formation in M66, and as a result it contains several bright star-forming knots.
In the 18”, I could see a bright core that looked like a bar oriented from 11 o’clock to 5 o’clock, with two arms emerging from it: one a soft diffuse arch going from the bottom toward the left, and another barely visible one extending symmetrically from the top toward the right. 
A member of the Leo Triplet, M65 is a spiral galaxy in Leo. It has a prominent central bulge and relatively smooth, tightly wrapped arms. It lies roughly 35 million light-years away with an angular size of around 10x3 arcminutes and a magnitude around 9.3.
Despite being part of an interacting group with two distorted companions, M65 looks remarkably undisturbed, a well-ordered spiral with a large central bulge and a well-defined dust lane along its disk. Compared to its neighbours, it has relatively little active star formation.
In the 18”, I could see the core glowing brightly, its brightness decreasing incrementally outward. There was some texture to the galaxy, possibly due to the dust lanes.
NGC 3628, sometimes called the Hamburger Galaxy, is the third spiral galaxy of the Leo Triplet. It is an unbarred spiral galaxy with moderately wound arms seen almost perfectly edge-on, and with a prominent dark dust lane running along its length. It lies roughly 35 million light-years away with an angular size of around 15x3 arcminutes, the largest of the three in apparent size. Its magnitude is around 9.5.
Due to tidal interactions with M65 and M66, NGC 3628’s disk is visibly warped. It also has an enormous tidal tail extending roughly 300,000 light-years in one direction, though even glimpsing part of this tail requires a sharp eye and careful study.
In the 18”, I could see a very long galaxy, at least twice as long as the other two, but faint enough that I was not sure where it ended. The dust lane was clearly visible in the brighter central part, running parallel and close to the left edge. I could not see the core, even though the center appeared brighter.
NGC 2903 is a barred spiral galaxy in Leo, fairly large at around 12x6 arcminutes and bright at magnitude 8.9. It lies roughly 30 million light-years away. It has an unusually active star-forming region at its core, a so-called hotspot nucleus, with intense bursts of star formation in a roughly 2,000 light-year diameter ring around the nucleus.
In the 18”, I could see two faint spiral arms curving clockwise as they emerged from above and below the core, with darker dust lanes between them. The core was medium bright and blended softly into the surrounding disk. There was also a distinct brightening to the lower right of the core, likely a large HII region. The features were a bit more defined in the 24” but still clearly visible in the 18”.
Arp 94, or NGC 3226 and NGC 3227, Two Galaxies in Leo
Arp 94, or NGC 3226 and NGC 3227, is an interacting pair of galaxies in Leo connected by a tidal stream.
NGC 3227 is the larger member, a barred spiral galaxy seen at an angle with an active galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole. The supermassive black hole is actively accreting material, making NGC 3227 a Seyfert galaxy with broad emission lines from rapidly moving gas just outside the accretion disk. It has an angular size of 5.4'x3.6' and a magnitude of 11.1. Its outer disk is distorted from the interaction with its companion.
NGC 3226 is the smaller member, an elliptical galaxy sitting close to NGC 3227. This smaller galaxy has an angular size of 3.2'x2.8' and a magnitude of 12.3. The two galaxies lie roughly 75 million light-years away.
In the 18”, I could see both galaxies easily. NGC 3227 appeared on top as a larger oval disk, roughly twice the size of its companion, with a bright star-like nucleus significantly brighter than the core of NGC 3226. Below it, NGC 3226 appeared rounder with its core showing a softer, more diffuse glow of medium brightness. The two looked connected visually. 
The first time I heard about Arp 244 was at GSSP 2025 during Steve Gottlieb’s talk. I immediately knew it was the type of object I wanted to look at. So I was eager to finally take a proper look.
NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 are two well-studied spiral galaxies in the process of merging. The name comes from their two enormous tidal tails stretching away from the main bodies in opposite directions, though these remain nearly invisible in most amateur telescopes. Both lie roughly 45-65 million light-years away. NGC 4038 has a magnitude of 11.2 and NGC 4039 a magnitude of 11.1.
Their first encounter happened 530 million years ago, and their merger properly started during their second encounter 41 million years ago. The two galactic cores are distinct and visible as separate nuclei, but the disks have been thoroughly disrupted and are interpenetrating. They are predicted to fully merge in 80 million years. The recent collision has triggered intense starbursts, and an enormous number of massive star clusters have been forming throughout the overlap region.
In the 24” with a 13 mm Ethos eyepiece, the Antennae looked like a C shape opening to the left, or a shrimp as they are sometimes called. The lower lobe was the larger of the two, roughly twice the size of the upper one, and contained a dark patch near its center. The upper lobe was rounder and flatter. Near the junction of the two lobes, a brighter patch was visible, probably one of the two galactic nuclei. I was not sure if I saw the other one. A dark lane extended horizontally from the left between the two lobes, almost all the way through. Some brighter knots were visible near the rim of the lower lobe, likely HII regions lit up by the intense star formation triggered by the recent collision. Looking at it again in my 18”, I could see the overall shape but fewer details. 
Arp 269 consists of NGC 4490 and NGC 4485, an interacting pair of galaxies in Canes Venatici. The Cocoon Galaxy technically refers to NGC 4490, the larger galaxy of the two. The two galaxies are in an early to intermediate stage of interaction, having already made their closest approach and now moving apart. Both lie roughly 25 million light-years away.
NGC 4490 is a barred spiral galaxy with a distorted chaotic structure and a double nucleus. The interaction has triggered vigorous star formation, making it a starburst galaxy. It has an angular size of 6.3'x3.1' and a magnitude of 9.8.
NGC 4485 is an irregular galaxy whose original structure has been too disrupted by the interaction to retain its previous spiral form. It has an angular size of 2.5'x1.5' and a magnitude of 11.9. The two are connected by a stellar stream 25,000 light-years long.
In my 18”, the larger galaxy looked lopsided with its right side curling up toward the smaller galaxy, giving it the appearance of Aladdin’s lamp. The core seemed slightly offset to the left and its edges were not well defined. The smaller galaxy appeared to float above the right side of its larger companion, like the genie coming out of the lamp. I could see a hint of a bridge between the two. 
I did not realize immediately that M104 was the Sombrero Galaxy, even though its edge-on appearance and long dark dust lane bisecting the bright bulge are unmistakable.
M104 is a spiral galaxy with an unusually large central bulge, located roughly 28-31 million light-years away with an angular size of around 9x4 arcminutes and a magnitude around 8.0.
M104 hosts an exceptionally massive black hole of around one billion solar masses. It has an extended stellar halo detectable in large apertures as a faint glow, and a rich globular cluster system estimated at around 2,000 globular clusters. It also contains a cluster called SUCD 1, for Sombrero Ultra-Compact 1, which is thought to be the remnant nucleus of a disrupted dwarf satellite.
In the 18”, I could see its elongated shape tilted slightly on a diagonal. The core appeared medium bright and somewhat diffuse. The dark dust lane ran strongly along its full length parallel to the edge of the disk. The view was sharper and even more impressive in the 24”.
As a treat to close the evening, Steve generously agreed to look at the Mice with me in his 24”. Another bucket list item, the Mice are a pair of interacting galaxies whose two bodies and their long tail-like tidal streamers resemble two mice with tails. The two bodies are close together and their tidal tails extend in the same direction. NGC 4676A has an angular size of 2.2'x0.8' and a magnitude of 14.7, while NGC 4676B is slightly smaller at 1.7'x0.9' and magnitude 14.4. At roughly 290 million light-years away, they were much more distant than the other interacting galaxies I had looked at that night.
The Mice are thought to be just past their first close passage. The two galaxies look quite different from each other. NGC 4676A is more elongated and seen closer to edge-on, while NGC 4676B appears more face-on and rounder. Like other interacting pairs, the collision has triggered star formation, and both galaxies show young blue star clusters along their disks and in the tidal tails in Hubble images. Simulations predict they will fully merge in roughly a billion years, eventually forming a single elliptical galaxy.
In the 24”, I could see the two small bodies close to each other, with one tail curving upward and to the right. They were fairly faint and the other tail was invisible. Yet sometimes it is not about what you see but what is there, and just getting a glimpse of it is in itself extraordinary. 
Time to pack up for the night, including my sketchbook that stayed unused the whole evening. I was too eager to look for more and more galaxies to take the time to pause and draw.
Richard Navarrete
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Muriel Dulieu Holzer
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Akarsh Simha
Muriel Dulieu
On Mar 27, 2026, at 7:08 AM, Akarsh Simha <akars...@gmail.com> wrote:
Fantastic observing report. I'm also amazed to learn that the images in your report were taken by you! What a way to enjoy a night -- observe the object, then shoot it with the SeeStar to get an image for your OR. Incredible.Here is my result on the Leo Triplet from the same instrument, albeit darker skies. I found the arms of M 66 fairly challenging to see and it's impressive that you saw both of them.
<image.png>The HII knot you mention in NGC 2903 bears the designation NGC 2905. The RNGC (the "official" NGC/IC catalog that's in databases like SIMBAD and is generally devoid of historical correctness) identifies NGC 2905 as a duplicate designation of NGC 2903, but most historically correct NGC/IC catalogs (including the NGC/IC Project one that Gottlieb helped produce) identify it as a knot in NGC 2903 which is what I believe you observed.The Mice's tidal tail should also be visible in your scope. One of the best tidal tails for an 18-inch along with NGC 520.RegardsAkarsh
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