by rene-gedaly » Sun Mar 05, 2017 6:17 pm
New favorite galaxy: NGC 5907, the Splinter Galaxy in Draco. Just about fainted when I saw it in the C-14 late evening, early morning Mar 3/4 2017. I haven't stayed up past 4 a.m. since Steve Fast ran the Messier Marathon.
I'm up to 114 Herschels but using goto now. Still, the tricky (and time consuming) part is verifying that I'm truly seeing what I think I'm seeing. I've been using the Night Sky Observers Guides for that because of all the great drawings.
Today my Herschel 400 Observing Guide arrived. O'Meara's descriptions and navigation pointers are so intuitive I could go back to star hopping on the f/5. I doubt I will, though. The C-14 is a dream and I have other uses for the f/5, like the Asterism List, no goto allowed. Looking forward to using O'Meara's Guide to help me differentiate between all the Virgo galaxies. Have a few UMa to finish up, too.
Trying very hard not to think about how the optics could be better.
Rene Scandone Gedaly, Membership Chairperson
WSIG, Observatory Trainer, Texas 45-Visual, President 2015-2017