OR: Two hours of kicks on Route 66

[Akarsh Simha]

I was hoping to be out with my 28-inch for the April new moon, but that did not pan out. The draw was the prospect of seeing spiral arms in the bright spring galaxies with the newish-to-me large aperture dob. I had gotten a taste of what the 28-inch shows in January and it left me craving for more. Anyway, I settled for a night under Bortle 6 skies with my 12-inch in south India, digging out some southern objects.

The window for spring galaxies is fast closing, so I decided to make a two-night run at “Route 66”, one of my favorite local sites. The forecast looked absolutely perfect on Astrospheric, which bolstered my urge to go out.

I had to however be on standby for something at work. I told myself if I was working late on Friday, I’d extend to be at R66 on Sunday night to make up. Anyway, the work stuff went smoothly and I just had a few things to take care of on Saturday afternoon when I had nothing else to do. Friday night observing happened.

Friday Night

Having arrived early, I was set up before dusk (!) and even collimated perfectly before it got dark. Wow. In the fading evening twilight, I looked at Jupiter which appeared very mushy with two bands and no GRS. Night fell as I had star hopped to Hickson 36, my first target. The view was pure mush. I was really disappointed at how bloated the stars were at the low power I thought I was using, but turns out I was at 486× and had confused eyepieces. Nevertheless, the stars were still over-sized and had big halos around them (probably a coating issue, the coating is over a decade old, but could also be conditions). I managed to see 3 out of 4 galaxies, missing ~16.5mag HCG 36d. Under good conditions, my telescope should hit north of 17th mag.

I wasn't sure if it was seeing or tube currents. The temperature had fallen drastically, and it had been a hot ride for the mirror in the back of my truck. Lesson learned, I desperately need to install a fan. Whatever the source, I struggled with the thermally bloated stars for most of the night. I have been more often than not underwhelmed by the seeing conditions at R66 despite being able to see the peak with one of the best seeing records in north America right from there -- beeing on the leeward side of the coastal range in terms of the laminar flow from the pacific, the seeing is bound to be disturbed. The search for coastal mountaintops continues.

Hickson 39 came next. At low power, the chain appeared as a linear glow. Tacking on 486×, I was only able to resolve two cores in the chain, not even sure which but likely "c" and "a" components. PGC 1120300 nearby was picked up, but it is not part of the group.

Around this time I smelled a skunk. Yikes! Luckily, it did not bother me. The skunk was pretty metaphorical for how my night was going. Notwithstanding the conditions, I proceeded to tackle Shakhbazian 49. Around this time, the thermals had settled a bit, so I was actually able to pick out two stars and the brightest galaxy -- Shakhbazian groups tend to have stars mixed in. This brightest member outside of our Milky Way shines at around 16.8 mag according to Sloan data, and lies about 2 billion ly away. It appeared in infrequent glimpses to averted vision. I was unable to confirm the second brightest 17.5mag galaxy, although I may have weakly glimpsed it.

NGC 3310 was featured recently as DeepSkyForum Object of the Week and also back in 2019. Here is my sketch:

The galaxy was very bright, with a brighter core. At high power, a spiral arm was seen going north pretty easily. The nucleus was stellar and seemed offset to the northern side of the disk. The disk itself appeared mottled. I picked up two condensations, a stronger one due south of the nucleus and a dimmer one to the north. A second arm going south was weakly detected and it appeared stubby and a lot fainter than the northern arm. There was a knot in the southern arm just as it exited the disk. The northern arm also showed a condensation at its tip. The southern knot is the one that is referred to as "Jumbo" in Scott's OOTW post.

I had prepared my list mostly from DeepSkyForum Object of the Week features, which are organized by constellation on Adventures in Deep Space making it easy to pick targets. Among the entries in was NGC 3738. When I looked at it through the telescope, it clearly showed "two nuclei", so I assumed this was the triple merger that I had put on my observing list and looked for the third nucleus. Conveniently, I found it. The three "nuclei" were almost collinear, arranged roughly WNW-ESE. The ESE nucleus was notably "softer" and less bright. A bar-like glow ran through the three points of light. The halo was asymmetric and appeared "smudged" to the south. Coming home, I realized---oops, this wasn't even the triple merger. Instead, I was looking at an irregular starburst galaxy! One "nucleus" was a star, the other two "nuclei" were star-forming regions. My sketch's star field seems a bit off, but the main galaxy matches reasonably with the image with this interpretation.

HST image of NGC 3738, north is to the left, east is down.

While looking at this field I noticed MLCG 1335, a nice grouping of galaxies near the 5.7mag star HD100615. I first looked at NGC 3733 near the star, which appeared as a ghostly north-south elongated low surface brightness glow. Then I moved towards the region of MLCG 1335 in which NGC 3737 was picked up immediately. It appeared like a spindle elongated east-west, as many edge-on lenticulars with large bulges do. NGC 3737A was the second brightest of the group, visible continuously to averted vision. PGC 94198 was also continuously visible. These three are apparently the constituents of the galaxy group MLCG 1335 according to SIMBAD. Sloan redshift data agrees -- it puts these in the ballpark of a pedestrian redshift of 0.018. A few more galaxies were picked up, though: PGC 2485071 was stellar at 291×, but showed some diffuseness at 486×. Surprisingly I picked up ~17.5mag SDSS J113542.72+545643.9 without knowing of its existence. After studying the image, I was also able to pull out PGC 94194 and PGC 2485567. These distant denizens are from a background galaxy cluster Abell 1318 along with several other galaxies scattered around the area. The cluster is about 780 million ly away. I also had a weak observation of PGC 2485974 in this cluster. Below is my sketch of the region:

I naturally also checked out the third of the three collinear galaxies -- NGC 3733, NGC 3738 and NGC 3756. It appeared heavily mottled with a slightly brighter condensed core, with a strong sensation of being an inclined spiral galaxy. Two knots were picked out, one NNW of the core and a weaker one SW of the core. The eastern edge of the disk seemed to have a defined rim.

Also from the hallowed pages of the DeepSkyForum, Karachentseva Galaxy Trio #61 (KTG 61) in Serpens Caput has a bizarre looking galaxy UGC 9829 = VV 847. I happened to look at it once before through Jimi Lowrey's 48-inch. The DeepSkyForum thread is full of 48-inch reports, but I wish to contribute that the "tail" was fairly to see in my 28-inch. I wrote that UGC 9829 was the brightest of three glows arranged in an isosceles triangle, all of which are visible continuously to averted vision. Intermittently, a strong, thin, long extension flashed into view originating from the western side of the core and going north. It seemed like it curved a bit counterclockwise. A fuzzy stubby extension was also seen due east of the galaxy, but was less prominent. The other two galaxies in the trio appeared nondescript. I wasn't able to see the "V"-shaped bend in the "tail", which Ivan Maly points out may be a superposed Magellanic irregular galaxy viewed edge-on.

Deep-sky observers contend with a large number of spoilsports, and now the most predictable one—the moon—was going to end my fun. Hurriedly, I remembered NGC 5907 and the supernova in it. It was not difficult at all to see the supernova, and I estimated it as being slightly brighter than 15th mag (in fact it is actually fainter, but the lit-up background of the galactic disk made it hard to compare). I spent several minutes after moonrise sketching the galaxy as best as I could, and then covered up the mirrors and put the eyepieces away.

Saturday

The daytime of Saturday was uncomfortably hot but as a veteran of GSSP... was it 2024... I was unfazed by it. With not much to do other than some camping chores, I pulled up my work laptop and finished up some work. Then I switched to some personal project planning as well as some observing bookkeeping. I fixed my duct-taped finder scope, so it is now a super-glued finder scope with duct-tape reinforcement.

As evening fell, I pulled the covers off the mirror somewhat earlier so they would cool quicker. Peter K from San-Luis Obispo made his way in just as the twilight started to fade.

I was once again very underwhelmed by how bright the sky background was in the eyepiece. I looked up to see if there was any haze in the sky, there might have been some. The stars were however less bloated. I started out on NGC 2903 as the light was fading, and was impressed at how much spiral structure it showed. With careful observation at 291×, I was able to pick out four of its spiral arms and several knots dotting them. The view had a certain "granularity" that comes with the play of dust and luminous stars seen in flocculent spirals which is beyond my abilities to sketch. 

By this time it was fully dark and so I transitioned to Arp 307 even though it was at a fairly high airmass.This is a trio of NGC galaxies. NGC 2782 appeared very bright, with a much brighter condensed core and elongated NW-SE. NGC 2874 was an edge-on galaxy notably elongated NE-SW with a substantially brighter elongated core. The halo seemed brighter and more tapered on the southwest, wider and more diffuse on the northeast. A detached brightening was picked up on the northeastern tip. This detached brightening bears the designation NGC 2875. See late Owen Brazell's article on the topic.

NGC 3003 appears on Alan Dyer's "RASC Finest NGC" as well as Don Pensack's Top 500 list. In my 28-inch it was an elongated LSB glow. The core was much brighter. The disk appeared weakly mottled. The disk was asymmetric about the core with the eastern side having more bright material. On the western side, a detached knot was picked up. The knot was fairly low in contrast and was only visible intermittently to averted vision.

Ring galaxy IC 614 was once again featured as a DSF Object of the Week. Unfortunately, I couldn't see much beyond the core of the galaxy at 486× or 583× and I was only able to get a weak sensation of a dimmer "halo" around the brighter core, especially towards the south/southeast.

Arp 107 is another very interesting galaxy, and here is its object of the week post. PGC 32628, the elliptical of the interaction, appeared stellar and continuously visible to direct vision. The core of PGC 32620, the distorted spiral, was continuously visible to averted vision and appeared slightly elongated. Occasionally, one could tell that it had a lopsided halo that was strongest towards the south-southeast. This was picked up without prior knowledge of where it must be the strongest. Tacking on 583× I was able to get several subtle glimpses of a resolved brightening on the south-southeast, detached from the core. It subtended perhaps about 45–60° at the core. This is the brightest segment of the distorted arm. Some day I hope to see as much as Uwe Glahn has with similar aperture :-).

NGC 3432 = Arp 206 is a weird peculiar galaxy in Leo Minor. The moment I saw in KStars that it had a "dim piece of detached light" designated UGC 5983, I knew I wanted to see it. (By the way, I see more KStars users now although mostly imagers -- if you're a visual user of KStars and want a draft cut of the PGC catalog email me). It did not fail to impress at the eyepiece. The main body of the galaxy itself was very bright and linear, fatter at the northeast in the "core" and thinner as it headed to it's southwest tip with a superposed bright star. There was a brightening in the body just southwest of the "core". The glow extended beyond the superposed bright star on the southwest. On the northeast end, averted vision showed a dim glow continuing beyond the "core", harboring a brighter knot towards its tip. The glow appeared to "thicken" as I've rendered it, although you don't see this in images so it may be a visual effect. Knowing only that the dwarf galaxy UGC 5983 lay somewhere to the southwest/west, I carefully studied the region. Two glows caught my eye, one of which matched position with a dim star. The other glow was UGC 5983, and it appeared slightly elongated and was extremely subtle. Sketch below.

It was around midnight now, and the temperature suddenly got colder. I went to put on layers and looked up the next object on my list -- Arp 294. I was considering skipping this object and moving on, but I'm so glad I chose not to. What I found in the eyepiece was an extremely beautiful L-shaped interaction of two galaxies: NGC 3786 and NGC 3788. Both galaxies were high in surface brightness. Their halos appeared to touch at the corner of the "L"-shape they made. The elongated edge-on had a detached brightening north of the core. The other galaxy showed a stellar core and a diffuse, slightly elongated halo whose southwestern rim seemed to be more marked. I showed the view to Peter who had wandered around earlier while I was star-hopping to see what I was looking at. The view was beautiful and my words or sketch don't do justice, I went back and stared for a while more at 583×.

Then I looked up at the sky. Something had changed. The star density was very good, the background had become blacker. Wow! I guess some moisture must have gotten blown away or something, or perhaps fog filled the valley like the folks at LS experienced. Thus began two hours of ecstasy until the moon rose.

I finally felt motivated to pursue what I was longing: spiral arms. I pulled up M 99, and then M 100, showing both to Peter. M 99 looked exceptional, showing three spiral arms with ease. I went back to it with a range of powers 208–416× and sketched what I saw.

I feel so woefully incapable of capturing the beauty of what I was seeing on pencil and paper. Above is my best attempt, I had to do some heavy post-processing in GIMP to try smooth my pencil strokes and give the feel of a diffused halo that I saw in the eyepiece. Previously, I have sketched the same galaxy through Jimi's 48-inch although the sketch strokes etc. haven't been blended properly there.

Then I moved on to M 61. It too, was absolutely stunning. Called Peter over as well to have a look at the intermediate spiral with sprawling arms and knots.

North is to the left in my sketch. Once again, my sketch is a poor attempt at capturing the visual impression of this awesome galaxy.

After this, given how dark the sky was and how good the conditions felt, I couldn't resist the temptation of looking at M 51. It was fabulous. Of course, I've seen better, but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying M 51 on a less-than-perfect night. I could easily see the tidal tail of M51b, but the full "E"-shape was difficult. The arms of M51a were picturesque, with strong mottling. The "connecting" arm was easily seen (it isn't actually connecting, since M51a is I believe in the foreground of M51b). 

When conditions are excellent, M 101 shines. It was the natural next target. We found it in all its glory sporting several grand spiral arms that were dotted with nebulous knots. Obviously, I didn't attempt to sketch M51 and M101 as the overwhelming detail is very demanding and needs many many hours to render.

NGC 5669 was another spiral galaxy I wanted to see, although it is nowhere grand as these showpieces. It showed its two arms -- the southwestern arm was particularly distinct whereas the northeastern one was subtle. There was a brightening north of the core on the latter arm.

With about 15–20 minutes left for moonrise, I moved back to NGC 5907 to clean up my sketch and add some more detail. Somehow the supernova appeared subtler on the second night; had it rapidly faded or was my memory of its brightness poor? In any case, here is the sketch of NGC 5907 and SN2026kid, both nights combined:

Post Noctem

Next morning, I checked the forecast and assessed my contentment and enthusiasm levels, deciding whether to extend a night. I figured I was sufficiently content with what I'd observed, and packed up to leave. The laborious pack-up in 100°F was an arduous 2-hour process over which I took many breaks to rest and hydrate. I decided to make the drive home more fun, so I took a different route over the coastal range onto the Pacific Coast Highway. When passing near one of the central coast's popular campsites, which is overrun by boisterous campers although excellent for observing, I realized that it might still be worth going there just for the views of the pacific ocean from the mountains. I had thought I'd seen every beautiful view this state had to offer—the giant Sequoias, the redwoods in Del Norte county, Fern Canyon, Half Dome, the towering El Capitan, Tuolumne Meadows, the view at Monitor Pass, the wildflowers in Anza-Borrego, the Golden Gate, Lake Tahoe's blue waters, Artist's Palette at death Valley, Mt. Whitney framed in the Moebius Arch, sunset with cirrhus against the Sawtooths, the drive from Lee Vining to Bridgeport, McWay falls, waves sloshing through Pfeiffer Beach's stone arch, ... certainly didn't expect to add one more view to that list of top views. I spent substantial time just sitting on the camper shell of my truck, admiring the views on the descent to the coast. I sometimes think the earth is just as interesting as the galaxies yonder, and it made me feel fortunate to be able to witness all of it. The breathtaking vistas continued as I drove home on the PCH on one of those rare clear days on our coast, and spent the sunset moments overlooking the coastline at Bixby Bridge. A sun pillar added to the view.

Clear Skies and Happy Exploring,

Akarsh

[Mark Wagner]

I'll read thru this en toro later Akarsh, but skimming I am impressed at the easy narrative writing style and excellent sketching.  Makes me want to observe more.  Like listening to a good friend talking.

[Howard Banich]

My thoughts exactly. I especially love your final paragraph.

Howard

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[Richard Navarrete]

Geez, you should write observing books. Thanks for such a wonderful OR.

Richard

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[Rajah]

Great OR, I always enjoy reading about your night time adventures. While all the deep sky stuff was amazing to read, I really enjoyed the last paragraph.

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[Mark Wagner]

I thought the end was great too.  I wondered if the100 degree tear down was the two hours of kicks (on rt 66)?

[Akarsh Simha]

I really am amazed you folks have the patience to read, at least skip-read this stuff. Keeps me motivated to share.

But thank you for your kind words. If my writing has become more enjoyable of late, it is from reading others’ reports here and from Howard’s articles in S&T. I have learned that reporting on observing is more than just reporting on the views of the objects.

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[Richard Navarrete]

Yes, yes, yes! To me, the narrative is just as important as the observation itself. It can paint a picture of the whole process. Much more enjoyable to read that way.

Richard

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