#ngc 3384

[chibinotan]

Barred Ellipse

[serriedmultitude]

Observing report--June 14, 2012

I lucked into a nice, used copy of Uranometria 2000.0 at a great price. A detailed star atlas is very helpful for dealing with light-polluted skies, especially when navigating through sparse sections of sky.

Tonight, I took another shot at knocking off the remaining Messier objects in Leo in the M96 group. Starting at 73 Leonis, I worked my way west using my widest eyepiece (40mm) in my 8" reflector. I could barely see anything beyond magnitude 10ish, so the U2K which shows down to 9.75 magnitude was a perfect guide. I located 52 leonis, then south to the binary star and 7th mag star that triangulate M105.

M105--could just barely see it at first, but it became more prominent as the sky darkened.

NGC 3384--after a few minutes, I could make out M105's neighboring galaxy. I tried to make out their other close neighbor NGC 3389, and spied some suspicious and fleeting fuzziness, but I'd be lying to lay claim to seeing it definitively.

And before I could locate M95 and M96, the neighbor's darn tree got in the way. I tried relocating to another part of my yard to no avail. I moved to a third spot, but different trees were in the way. I'll start at this third location tomorrow night or the night after, as it may give me that extra few minutes I need. It's a race against the stars!