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[Paulie pchris00]

Carl Sagan might not have ever said "billions and billions," but I will. This morning I saw stars by the billions and billions. I observed 24 objects I'd never seen before, most of them galaxies in Leo and Virgo. All those galaxies are nicely placed to jump from one to the next, like intergalactic star hopping.

I'm almost certain I doubled the number of galaxies I've ever seen. They are never high on my priority list, but if you get the chance under a moderately dark sky, with a fairly large aperture telescope, go galaxy hopping through Leo, Virgo, or Ursa Major. It's almost like shooting fish in a barrel, can't miss. And you get to count stars by the billions and billions.

[patrickm]

Awesome!

Jealous.

[-=CROMAN=-]

Paulie.. I've got to get out there soon! I'm hoping to have a somewhat decent astrophoto setup soon.

[Paulie pchris00]

I've never been much of a galaxy observer, but have hit up the easier ones like M31, M51, M101, M81 & 82, M66 & 65, and M104. I'd probably seen a total of less than 20 galaxies before Saturday night/Sunday morning. Here's my observing list from that session, with objects I hadn't seen before italicized:

Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto (from Chesterton, early in the night; the rest were after I arrived at Conway Observatory).

M42-12:05 AM

Bright meteor east-west through Hydra- 12:41 AM

M93- 12:46 AM- open cluster in Hydra

M68- 12:50 AM- dim, maybe loose globular cluster in Hydra (below Beta Corvus)

M66 & M65- 1:19 AM- spiral galaxies in Leo, part of Leo Triplet

NGC 3628- 1:21 AM- galaxy in Leo, also part of Leo Triplet

Mars- 1:24 AM

Saturn, Titan, and four small moons close in- 2:11 AM

M95 & M96-2:29 AM- galaxies in Leo

Here's where it got really fun. There is a cluster of galaxies east west of Denebola, and reading my star chart well, I jumped galaxy to galaxy.

M105, NGC 3384, NGC 3389 (very dim)- 2:40 AM- galaxies in Leo

NGC 3367, NGC 3377- 3:01 AM- galaxies in Leo

NGC 3607 & NGC 3608- 3:12 AM- galaxies in Leo

M104- 3:33 AM- Spiral galaxy in Virgo (on the border with Corvus). Possibly the second coolest galaxy after Andromeda. Averted vision dust lane visible.

On to the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies.

M98 & M99- 3:49 AM- galaxies in Virgo

M88, M91- 3:53 AM- M88 spiral galaxy, M91 big, but dim, possibly elliptical galaxy

M90, M89, M58, M59, M60- 4:00 AM- galaxies in Virgo

M84, M86- 4:25 AM- galaxies in Virgo

M87- 4:26 AM- giant elliptical galaxy in Virgo, the prize of the Virgo Cluster. Slightly disappointed, but glad to have finally seen it.

NGC 4361- 4:51 AM- planetary nebula in Corvus

Moonrise 5:05 AM


Summary: In about five hours of (cold) observing time, I saw 33 objects. Twenty-five of those I observed for the first time, and 26 were galaxies. I would have seen even more galaxies, but the finder scope on the 16" was somehow knocked badly out of alignment, and I had to waste precious time finding Mars and getting the finder realigned. Twenty-six billion or so stars in a single night is incredible to me.

I'm thinking about trying this again in April, when Virgo is in the evening sky, and maybe a Messier Marathon in March. These will be invitation only sessions for the CA crew. (If you've ever got an invite from me before, you'll be on the list for these).

[-=CROMAN=-]

Sounds great Paulie!

[erikruud]

Feb 19, 2012 6:54:35 GMT -6 Paulie pchris00 said:

Carl Sagan might not have ever said "billions and billions," but I will.

He did eventually write a book with that as the title though. I read it recently and it is a very good book. The original source of the "Billions & Billions" quote is attributed to Johnny Carson and his parody of Sagan. Sagan did overemphasize the B in billions while creating "Cosmos" because he wanted to make sure the audience didn't think he was saying millions.

[patrickm]

High five, Paulie!! I am up for a marathon, too. On my giant list of stuff. I will bet $1 that you saw close to double that amount of stars...

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I'm impressed.

Pantless next time.

[Paulie pchris00]

Feb 22, 2012 10:17:24 GMT -6 erikruud said:

He did eventually write a book with that as the title though. I read it recently and it is a very good book. The original source of the "Billions & Billions" quote is attributed to Johnny Carson and his parody of Sagan. Sagan did overemphasize the B in billions while creating "Cosmos" because he wanted to make sure the audience didn't think he was saying millions.

I didn't finish Billions and Billions, but I borrowed it from the library, and just returned it Saturday. I found the Carson story in the introduction hilarious, and yes, was referring to it above.

[Paulie pchris00]

Feb 22, 2012 13:11:42 GMT -6 patrickm said:

I will bet $1 that you saw close to double that amount of stars...

I'll keep my dollar. I was estimating on the low side, figuring about one billion stars per galaxy. M104 and M87 no doubt skew that figure much higher. The rest seemed mostly to be fairly large, but distant spiral galaxies, where the average number of stars might be closer to 2 billion. At any rate, it's an incomprehensible number of stars to me.