| rodelaet |
| (Post Laureate) |
| 05/19/08 05:48 PM |
| Attachment |
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Binocular Icon 14 : Messier 94
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Some deep sky objects excel in brightness, others in delicacy. To me, the galaxy M94 excels in remoteness. M94 forms a nice trio with Alpha (Cor Caroli) and Beta CVN, the two stars that form the constellation Canes Venatici. A pair of binoculars can show this trio very nicely in the same field of view. While holding Alpha and Beta in your sights, try to look for an 8th magnitude star out of focus at 1 1/2° northeast of the midpoint between the Hunting Dogs. With direct vision, the galaxy looks like a small star point. Averted vision makes M94 to look like a swollen star. Various distances have been reported for M94. They range from 14 million light-years to 33 million light-years. M94 does look very remote when its distance is compared with the 110 light-years of Cor Caroli, doesn’t it?
Site : Butgenbach, Belgium
Date : May 5, 2008
Time : around 22.00UT
Binoculars : Bresser 8x56
FOV: 5.9°
Filter : none
Mount : Trico Machine Sky Window
Seeing : 2,5/5
Transp. : 4/5
Nelm : 6.0
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with Photo Paint, based on a raw pencil sketch.
| frank5817 |
| (Post Laureate) |
| 05/19/08 09:40 PM |
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Re: Binocular Icon 14 : Messier 94
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Rony,
Great sketch. M 94 does not show much detail in a medium scope but it is easy to find in poor skies because of its high surface brightness. This sketch is so well done it could be used as a finder chart while star hopping to the galaxy from alpha or beta. Wonderful,impressive work.
Frank
| WadeVC |
| (Carpal Tunnel) |
| 05/19/08 09:58 PM |
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Re: Binocular Icon 14 : Messier 94
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Rony,
That is just simply an awesome sketch of M94, nicely done indeed!
| atoptics |
| (Pooh-Bah) |
| 05/20/08 04:23 AM |
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Re: Binocular Icon 14 : Messier 94
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Just like actually seeing it.
| digitaldave |
| (sage) |
| 05/20/08 05:33 AM |
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Re: Binocular Icon 14 : Messier 94
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Rony,
Another great sketch, thanks for sharing.
I've been really impressed with your Binocular Icon series. The background text is useful and interesting, and the images themselves are fantastic. They really give a great impression of what you'll see through binoculars, something that, in my opinion at least, some books I've read haven't managed to do - they either just have a simple chart of the area, or they have a picture taken from a large aperture scope that bears little resemblance to what binoculars would show.
I seriously think you should consider publishing these as a book. Something a bit like Turn Left At Orion, but just for binocular objects
.Dave.
| rodelaet |
| (Post Laureate) |
| 05/20/08 09:50 AM |
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Re: Binocular Icon 14 : Messier 94
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Frank, Wade, Les and Dave,
Your kind words mean a lot to me!
Dave, I hope you do get the time to seek out and enjoy watching these objects for yourself. Most of them should be reachable within your 10x50. But be aware, I did observe them under a mag 6 sky.
Dave, here is a link to John Flannery's Binocular Certificate Handbook. You should have plenty of targets to go after with this one.
Be glad that I did not think of book. Otherwise I would not have permission from my (still to be found) publisher to post these sketches over here.
Clear skies,