Pushing the envelope

Tonight I tried a few newbies before going back to an old toughie. M74 and M77 are both galaxies within short starhops of bright stars; finding them should have been easy. The catch- and there's always a catch- is that they are both fairly dim. For comparison, M1, my big success story from last night, is magnitude 8.0, whereas M77 is mag 8.9 and M74 is mag 9.4.

First I went west to bag M38 in Cygnus before it set. It's an easy find, above Deneb and just below the blue pair of pi1 and pi2 Cygni. I think I'd seen it before, but I wanted to be sure for statistical purposes. It's a big broad cluster in a triangle shape. The six brightest stars were in two curving parallel lines in one corner; two other bright stars were the other corners, and a long thin diamond of four stars formed the side opposite the six brightest.

I tried M74 in Pisces next, as it was higher in the sky. Both alpha and beta Arietis, and alpha and gamma Pegasi (the bottom of the Great Square) point toward eta Piscium. It's nearly mag 4, but it's the only bright star in the area so it's relatively easy. I planned on slewing over to a blue star and then up; it should have been about halfway to an unequal pair of orange stars. I found all the guide stars easily enough, and I thought I saw a faint fuzzy near a dim tight pair, but I wasn't sure. I checked the DSS image; the galazy was much further to the left (east) than I had thought. Even after checking the DSS image for an exact location, I still couldn't find the dang galaxy.

Moving on, M77 in Cetus is right next to delta Ceti. I found the star easily; it's right below gamma, in the head of the Whale. The whole head asterism is bright enough that I'm surprised I wasn't already familiar with it. M77 is in a little trapezoid that includes 4th-mag delta and a 5th- and a 6th-mag star. I found it pretty much right away. No doubt this time; it moved when I moved the eyepiece and stayed still when i didn't. It was very dim, in the middle of a scalene triangle of 8th-mag-or-so stars. I wasn't sure but I thought I detected an elongation along the long axis of the triangle. Consulting the DSS image afterward confirmed all these observations. Ah, success! These observations put a limiting magnitude of sorts on my setup and the sky tonight. Apparently it lies somehere betwen M74 and M77, or mag 8.9 and 9.4.

I thought to try globular M79 in Lepus, but the Hare was still pretty low; still, alpha and beta Leporis point that way so I thought I'd try it. I found the 5th-mag star next to it, but I wasn't sure exactly where to look. Another time, perhaps.

I entertained myself with M42 and Machholz for a few before tackling my last target. I tried the 40mm Plössl for a wider field and really liked the view. In fact, Machholz looked best in my finderscope; a tail was visible pointing east to the Pleiades. I also hit up M31 with the Plössl and could see M32 in the field as well.

Finally I tried M81/M82. I consulted the map and ran back and forth several times, but I just keep getting lost in that area. I think it will be just a matter of getting extremely familiar with the area north of tau Ursae Majoris. I finally gave up; as much stumbling around as I did I'm surprised I didn't hit them accidentally; M81 is supposedly sixth magnitude.

Accentuate the positive: M38, M77, M31, M32
Eliminate the negative: M79, M81, M82