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[timothy]

Hi
I'm about 99% sure I targeted M94 last night with my 5" newt eq. Since my finder broke I've been a little lost. So I was just scanning around when I came upon a fuzzy patch. At first I thought it might be a globular or comet Machholz but it just did'nt look right for either one of those. It looked like a very tight group of stars with a fuzzy look to it that that just would not come into focus . I tried my O111 filter but that just made the field way to dark. I also tried going from 60x to 120 and 150 but that did'nt seem to help.
I read a report from a person using a 4.5 " reflector under 6 mag skys, and he remarked about the bright stellar core, so maybe thats what I was seeing. Another problem was that I was looking just over the top of my apartment building. So I'll have to wait till it gets a bit higher.
I finally recieved my new finder today and a 25% moon filter and a waist pack to hold all my EP's and filters ...

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

What a great find.

In this time exposed image, (not mine), it almost appears that the stars surrounding the galaxy are evenly spaced out.

M94(NGC 4736) ( 12h 48m.6 +41° 23') is a spiral galaxy seen nearly face-on. It has a magnitude of 7.5 and a distance of just over 14 million light years. In small telescopes the bright central disk and a larger scope under dark skies will reveal the spiral arms

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Good job targeting it.

Tim, I forget where you call home. You have much darker skies than here in Chicago.

[timothy]

Joe
I'm in Buffalo Grove IL
Thanks for the picture of M94. Now I am 99.1 % sure that I saw M94 because there was a forground star in my FOV that looked just like the two in the picture that I was using to focus on. Seems like the best finds for me are the ones I just happen upon!

[timothy]

all right, I got my new finder on and lined up. about 11:00 all those nasty clouds went away for a couple hours so I went out . No moon, nice and clear but kind of windy. Canes Vanatici was up about 80 degrees so I took anoyher look at M 94. Am 100% sure now. At 60x and 150x I was able to see a bright steller core and slightly elongated nebulosity around it. It seems to be a little bigger than M110.
Europa was transiting Jupiter again but still was unable to see the shadow. Oh well I'll keep trying.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Tim,

You encourage me to make this object my number One target on my next session... ;D

I'll post what I observe.

[timothy]

Joe
I'm glad my enthusiasm is rubbing of on you. It's really easy to find , just make a triangle with alpha and beta venaticorum and scan around a little. Then after you target M94 you can go for M81-82. I got them tonight!

Good Luck and may the force be with you