Springtime Deepsky Delight!

[Adrian R.]

Just returning from our local dark sky sight Green River State Wildlife Area near Dixon, IL...WOW..hands down one of my greatest deep field viewing sessions of my entire observing life! To you folks west of the Mississippi this may be a common place, but for us; 'under the jet streamers', seeing this portion of the sky in spring in our region is very difficult due to weather conditions, but conditions were nearly ideal for several hours. Galaxies were EVERYWHERE..and many displaying great amounts detail. The show stopper was the Coma cluster. A river of galaxies, of varying brightness, design, and orientation leading to a giant pond of galaxies that resembled the Hubble deep field image. Easily 10-12 bright galaxies (many with detail) in a nearly one degree field (21Ethos)..and many more visible with averted vision. It was nearly impossible not to see at least one galaxy while panning from Leo, through Coma, south to Virgo, and ending in Corvus. At 2am though a wicked north eastern wind picked up ushering in clouds and COLD temps... The camper's furnace ran continuously extinguishing all its fuel by 6am. 7am saw cold rain..Not fun for packing..but it was WELL WORTH it!

Due to its remote nature, galaxy viewing is one of my favorite telescopic pastimes.

[Jerry Morris]

Ditto the galaxy viewing enjoyment! My wife and I have very much enjoyed cruising the night sky admiring these marvelous "city of stars", and have particularly learned to appreciate the use of our dob and refractor to get a "micro" perspective from the larger aperture of the dob, compared to the "macro" perspective of the much smaller aperture, wide field view of the refractor. It really brings a sense of the bigger picture, after admiring the incredible galaxy structure detail in our dob, to also enjoy seeing much of that individual galaxy's neighborhood in the wide field refractor, often with many galaxies floating together in inky black space, whose light started on it's journey to us when the very ground our observatory stands on was engulfed in intense volcanic activity with volcanic ash and lava dominating the area! There's something to be said for this "wow" factor!

[Adrian R.]

Nice reply Jerry...and I agree wholeheartedly. The paradoxical nature of galaxy viewing allows me to find the greatest intrigue of all objects observed. I am SO jealous of you guys who live at or very near to truly dark skies. I wish I could sell my house and move out somewhere west, but at this point its nothing but a pipe dream. I only hope that many of the great observers who live out there can truly appreciate the treasure that lies before them every clear, moonless night. It is something to embrace completely, and to NEVER, ever be taken for granted. My observing friends and I must drive at least two hours in order to reach skies that AT BEST, in which rarely happens, allows for mag. 6.0 skies. Add a couple of hours easily if you wish to reach another .5 mag. Its terrible..and the jet stream constantly throwing meteorological curve balls at us from above is maddening. Sky conditions are EVERYTHING!

[Jerry Morris]

I only hope that many of the great observers who live out there can truly appreciate the treasure that lies before them every clear, moonless night. It is something to embrace completely, and to NEVER, ever be taken for granted.

Words well spoken, Adrian. The "treasure" your refer to is the reason most of us live out here (most of my observing neighbors, including me, are not native to far west Texas). My 35 year working career required me to locate in 4 different states. The last assignment was 21 years in northeast Missouri, adjacent to the Mississippi River, where it was cloudy 250 nights a year with abundant light pollution. Out here, it's clear 250+ nights a year, with excellent transparency and SQM readings of 21.95 are not uncommon. The jet stream occasionally appears overhead, but goes away in a few days. Believe me, that "treasure" is truly appreciated out here!

[Adrian R.]

Great to hear, truly is. We often (our observing group) wonder if the folks out west appreciate what they have, and apparently your post answers this completely. Didn't win the lotto yesterday..although the jackpot now is over 475 million! Worthy of a $1.00 ticket purchase I suppose, even though this is even a far larger pipe dream! Meanwhile, we keep plugging away and hopefully down the line something breaks open with better opportunity.. I have every intention of one day ending up out there somewhere with a far larger scope housed in a permanent observatory...and keeping my smaller instrument for star parties. Clear skies and healthy thoughts to you!

[FaithJ]

People who live in the western US, and other arid places with a high percentage of clear nights, are lucky, as you yourself say, Jerry. I am really envious, being a UK resident...if I won the UK Lottery or the Euromillions, I'd definitely emigrate, especially as the UK is so overcrowded these days with all the light pollution you'd expect. Probably to West Texas, I have been there three times to date - with my fourth visit in a couple of weeks - so I know how good the skies are there.
But I have to make the best of what I have, and I have to say that the UK's reputation as a very wet and windy place isn't entirely justified, unless you live in the north west (I live in the south east and, as I type, the temperatures are in the 70s, the sun is shining and we've had nearly a month of clear and partly-clear skies)...I can't complain as I have good skies at home (the naked eye limiting mag is often 6.0 to 6.1 - and in a remote spot on the south coast of the island I live on, just south of the English mainland, the NELM can get to 6.6) and I do live in the clearest part of the UK, with an average of 33% totally clear nights over the course of a year affording a reasonable number of observing opportunities, even if some of them inevitably coincide with a bright Moon or a work night...

Galaxies are my favourites; I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights under mag 6.3 skies (but with dodgy transparency on Friday and Saturday and good transparency on Sunday), looking through the galaxies of Virgo with my 18". I spent a few hours in and around Markarian's Chain and the amount of galaxies there was just fantastic, including very faint ones that weren't on my charts. I also got a few galaxies down in Crater and Corvus, too, although, I had to sit or kneel on the ground to look through my telescope!