Three more Coma galaxies

It is still clear with no moon tonight but there were some clouds earlier, it was dewy tonight, and rain is predicted for Saturday so I decided to make another night of it and see what I could do in the Virgo area with my 8". After fiddling around a bit, I went after M98, 99, and 100 in Coma by hopping along a line between Denebola and Eps Vir. About a field width of my 9x50 past Denebola I noticed a 5 star asterism that reminded me of the head of Scorpius. This makes a nice anchor for these three galaxies as all three are near one of the 5 stars: the two ends of the 'head' and the middle of the 'tail". M99 was the best of the three, being a largish blob near SAO100039. M98 is an elongated dim patch near 6 Com.
I finally gave up trying to read my paper charts and set up my laptop outside. That made it much easier to verify star fields but I still wasn't able to find any other objects. This is a rich area but I'll need to be better prepared to be able to find them with my dob. I doubt that they are bright enough to do well with the ETX-70 either.

Virgo cluster with the ETX70

Another clear night after getting back from Paducah and my Legion meeting so I decided to try the Virgo cluster with my ETX. My new leveling table worked great to level the ETX and get it aligned nicely. I was able to spot the xmas tree asterism easily and could barely make out M59 and M60. M68 showed pretty well but not 89 or 90. I sketched the field around M49 and verified it as a dim patch using averted vision. I was also able to verify M84 and M86 but had them reversed for some reason or other. Both were dim in the ETX and I had to use averted vision to see them. After deciding that galaxies aren't so great in the little ETX I went hunting with unaided eye. There is a nice open cluster about 2/3 of the way along a line between the tail of the big bear and the tail of the lion. This unaided eye visible group turned out to be part of Coma Berenices (12 and 13 Com). There was a cute 'snail' asterism looking at me when I examined the area in binocs.
At 11:18 pm it was 63 deg and falling fast. R Lyra was 4.5 using 44 and 47 at 11:28. Beta Lyr was 3.2 using 32 and 38 at 11:38 pm.
Next I fired up the 'guided tour' on the ETX to see what it could do. M4 is a nice globular cluster in Scorpio near a twinkly Jewel (Antares). I could also see M4 in binocs easily. M13 is bright but small with the ETX. It looked like a fuzzy star. M6 was behind a tree at this time but I thought I could see it in binocs. This turned out to be M7 and another above it was M6. I was not able to see the ring nebula in the ETX. It might have been out of the field though.
All in all this was a great night. It was fairly warm right up to the end at midnight, clear, and NO DEW.

Virgo cluster again

Tonight was very clear and cool so I decided to take the 8" out and see what I could find in Virgo again. I had tried previously without a lot of luck. There is a lot here but it's rather dim. I went out armed with my overall chart of 11 galaxies in Virgo (M49, 58, 59, 60, 84 86 87, 88, 89, 90, 91) to see what I could see. I found M59 and M60 right off the bat at the right angle of a triangle formed from the two most eastern stars of the Virgo 'V' or 'cup' (del and eps vir). They are near a small 'xmas tree' asterism composed of Rho and 27 Vir and a couple of other 7th magnitude stars. Both M59 and 60 were easily visible is my 25mm ep. It had been awhile since I used it so it took some time to get used to the orientation of my dob and I had the usual assortment of problems standing on my head to see through the red dot finder, tripping over the battery wire, etc. I found M58 near a diamond shaped asterism of mag 8-10 stars (SAO 100178 etc) to the west. M89 was another small fuzzy just west of a chain of six dim 10th mag stars in a W pattern. All four objects were easy to see but not a lot of detail without study. M90 whould have been on the other side of the 'W' but I didn't notice it. I need to revisit these when I'm not as tired. My Tycho 2 catalog is a good one to use for star fields in this area.
I continued my observation of Lyrae doubles Beta and R. Bet Lyr was brighter than R Lyra tonight. I estimated Beta at mag 4 using 32 and 43. R Lyr was 4.7 using 44 and 47 at 11:30 PM.

Clear skies at last

Finally, a clear night with no clouds, t-storms, rain, etc. I went out after the Daily Show and stayed until 11:45pm or so. Seeing was pretty good but there seemed to be some haze that was reflecting more light than usual. I was still able to see seven stars in the little dipper, 7 in Corona Borealis, Bootes, 7 in Lyra including R Lyra. I intended to try my hand at the 10 star tutorial from AAVSO and was able to find both Beta Lyra and R Lyra. I estimated Beta Lyr at 3.2 using 32 and 38 and R Lyra at 5 using 44 and 54. The log site mentioned in the tutorial did not seem to be active so I left my email and will wait to see what happens. In the meantime, perhaps there will be some more clear nights to practice. I had a good view of Lyra over a tree about 11:00 or so. The moon wasn't up yet. I used my 7x50 binos but mainly just did some naked eye viewing. Just before quitting I switched my view to the south to see Scorpio rising, Corvus, Virgo, etc. It was quite difficult to estimate the brightness of the two variables. It took awhile just to find them and then I had to identify the appropriate comparison stars. It was probably easier to just use my eyes without binos! Most everything was visible with at least averted vision. Binos made it easier to see the dimmer stars like 54 though. I really needed my red light though. I was using a regular flashlight and my night vision was totally ruined after even a brief look at the charts. All in all it was a great night even if it was short and I was glad to get in a little observing, finally. Oh, and to cap it all off, just as I was getting ready to quit for the night, a gorgeous meteor flew from SW to NE just west of Lyra.