For those of you unaware of Canes Venatici I shall give you all a little background information. It was created in the 17th Century by Johannes Hevelius out of some faint stars which up until then had been included within Ursa Major and its name in Latin means "hunting dogs". The constellation is often depicted in illustrations as representing the dogs of Boötes the Herdsman, a neighbouring constellation to the east. Its other neighbouring constellations are Coma Berenices, and Ursa Major.
So now that I have dispensed with that bit of trivia I will get down to the nitty gritty of explaining what I saw!
Messier 3
RA: 13 42 11.62 Dec: +28 22 38.2
Type: Globular Star Cluster
Magnitude: 6.2
I had actually previously looked at this DSO before and on the whole it had looked like a prominent blurry cloud of light. With it being a bit darker tonight I was hoping to maybe see a bit more. What I saw was a much brighter and clearer patch of light in the sky but I still found it hard to resolve any specific stars in the cluster without using averted vision. I don’t know if maybe this is the best I can get visually with my telescope or if I need to just spend more time observing the cluster to get more out of it.
It is still quite an amazing object to look at anyway and I am sure I will be back again in the future.
Messier 51 / Whirlpool Galaxy (+ Companion Galaxy NGC 5195)
RA: 13 29 52.7 Dec: +47 11 43
Type: Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 8.4 (NGC 5195 - 10.5)
The Whirlpool Galaxy is a spiral galaxy estimated to be approximately 23 million light-years away from the Milky Way. An interesting aspect of Messier 51 is that it has a companion galaxy known as NGC 5195 that it is actually interacting with.
To be honest, I have actually tried to see this galaxy a few times from the back garden but have never managed to see it so I was very happy when I finally managed to spot it. In addition, I even managed to see the companion galaxy which I wasn’t actually expecting to see.
Whilst I struggled to see any of the spiral arms via my 127 MAK I did get the chance to look at it through a 12 inch Dobsonian scope which did show up some of the spiral structure. It was still a nice enough sight in my own scope and with averted vision it is possible I might be able to pick out some more of the galactic structure in my own telescope.
Messier 63 / Sunflower Galaxy
RA: 13 15 49.3 Dec: +42 01 45
Type: Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 9.3
The Sunflower Galaxy is a spiral galaxy estimated to be approximately 37 million light-years away from the Milky Way. Supposedly the spiral arms are meant to resemble the petals of a flower which explains the name but to be honest I couldn’t make out much structure at all in this galaxy so I have no idea if it is true. In fact at times I could barely even make out the core and so averted vision was my saviour as it did help make it more obvious. To be honest this galaxy was probably the hardest to see out of everything I looked at during my tour of Canes Venatici.
Messier 94
RA: 12 50 53.1 Dec: +41 07 14
Type: Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 9.0
Messier 94 is another spiral galaxy, but this one is estimated to be approximately 19 million light-years away from the Milky Way. What I noticed about this galaxy was that it has quite an obvious bright core that I could see without any issues. However, once I moved away from the core I didn’t really pick up any sort of structure at all. It was like the bright core was overpowering everything else which resulted in this galaxy looking more like a globular cluster than a galaxy.
Messier 106
RA: 12 18 57.5 Dec: +47 18 14
Type: Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 9.1
My final Messier target of the evening and unsurprisingly based on what I had seen so far it was another spiral galaxy! Anyway The Messier 106 is estimated to be approximately 23 million light-years away from the Milky Way. The view in the eyepiece was quite nice with a central core being clearly surrounded by a dim halo.
Caldwell 21
RA: 12 28 11.9 Dec: +44 05 40
Type: Irregular Galaxy
Magnitude: 10.0
The one Caldwell I viewed actually turned out to be an irregular galaxy which was nice considering I was beginning to suffer from spiral galaxy overload by the time I looked at it. The galaxy is estimated to be approximately 12 million light-years away from the Milky Way and it was therefore the closest galaxy I viewed during my observing session.
When I looked at this galaxy it was obviously different to the spirals I had already seen as it had an obvious box like shape. I actually enjoyed seeing this because it did look different and I think in the future I will try and study this more along with all the other Caldwell objects in Canes Venatici.
La Superba (HIP 62223 / SAO 44317)
RA: 12 28 11.9 Dec: +44 05 40
Magnitude: 4.8 - 6.3
I decided to take a look at the star called La Superba because its rather interesting name caught my attention. The name actually comes from a 19th century astronomer called Angelo Secchi who was hugely impressed with the beauty of the star. The star is a giant red "carbon star" which means it has started to fuse helium into carbon and it is this process that results in a strong red colour. Another interesting aspect is that it is also a semi-regular variable star, peaking at about +4.8 mag and diminishing to around +6.3 over a 160 day cycle.
Even though this star is supposedly one of the reddest in the night sky it still looked reasonably orange to me and I am not sure it was that much more vivid a colour that Betelgeuse. It is possible that it was at a dim stage in its variability and this dulled the colour slightly but I can't say I was as impressed I had hoped to be. In the end it was still a nice colourful star to look at when you compare it to the vast quantity of white stars around but I will need to check it out in the future just to see if I can notice any change due to its varying magnitude.
Overall, I am happy that I managed to see all the Messier objects at times I think I was rushing through them so I could fit everything into the observing period. I think in the future I may try and look back over some of these galaxies and see if I can pick out any more structure by really studying them although I think my telescope aperture is always going to limit me to some extent.
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