Summary of Observing Session for May 15

This was our last session for the current school year, and we saw a lot of impressive objects. The evening started with a view of Venus. With high magnification we could see that it was exhibiting a phase much like our moon. Our next object was the giant elliptical galaxy M87 that lies at the heart of the Virgo Cluster. Even though it has a mass of several trillion solar masses, because it lies 60 million lightyears away, it appeared as a faint fuzzy patch. From there we moved on to M60, another elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, as well as NGC 4647, a spiral galaxy that is interacting with M60. The next object was M64, the Black Eye galaxy. This is a spiral galaxy with a lot of gas and dust which we saw as a dark band across the central portion of the galaxy. Next up were two globular star clusters, M53 and M3. Both of these globulars contain many RR Lyrae variable stars which we just discussed in class. What came next was mind boggling. After the globular clusters we viewed the quasar 3C 273 which lies 2.44 BILLION lightyears away! Light from this active galaxy had traveled through space for over 2 billion years before entering our eyes. This is the most distant object that most amateur astronomers can see. Somewhat closer to home at "only" 50 million lightyears away, we next turned our attention to M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. This is a beautiful edge on spiral in Virgo. Our next to last object was the Cats Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) in Draco. This is an easily seen and beautiful planetary nebula. The last object of the evening was the jewel of the solar system, Saturn. We had great seeing conditions, and even though the rings were not tilted much right now, we could easily see them as well as three of its moons: Titan, Dione, and Tethys.