Kurt, What size scope are you going to use to go after the Mice? The NGC/IC project gives it a visual magnitude of 13.5 and a blue magnitude of 14.4. Just curious because one of my goals is to observe and capture the tidal tails that come from these galaxy interactions. After you observe, you should refine and submit to one of the Astronomy publications as mentioned over at Cloudy Nights. On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 11:38 PM, Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> wrote:
To wrap this series of Realm of the Galaxies posts, I've done two finders to locate two of my favorite "peculiar" interacting galaxies - The Antenna Galaxies and The Mice Galaxies.
The Antenna Galaxies NGC4038-4039 C60-C61 Hubble Close-up http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/galaxy/pr1997034d/
The Mice Galaxies NGC4676 Hubble Close-up http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2002/11/image/d
I have never seen the Mice galaxies in an eyepiece. They are listed on Alan Dyer's and Alister Ling's Deep Sky Challenge Objects in the 2010 RASC Handbook at page 319 as requiring 250mm or more of aperture.
Targeting both of these objects can benefit from practicing finding locator stars during after-work sessions with binos under light-polluted suburban skies.
The Antenna Galaxies Finder http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=3323
To practice finding the Antenna galaxies using bright locator stars, position your binos between Gienah (gam Crv) and eta Crater and slew celestial south for 2 degrees. Pickup magnitude 5.3 locator star SAO157042. C60 and C61 are a 1 deg north celestial declination slew from SAO157042.
The Mice Galaxies Finder http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=3326
To practicing finding the Mice galaxies, orient to Coma Bernices by finding the coat-hanger asterism of the Coma Bernices open cluster, gam Com, the 31 Com optical double and beta Com. Celestial northeast of bet Com is 37 Com, a magnitude 4.9 star.
The Mice NGC4676 are at a 3 degree westerly right-ascension slew from 31 Com. If possible, pickout faint (under light-polluted skies) mag 6.9 star SAO63195. NGC4676 is a one degree easterly slew from SAO63195.
This region of Coma Bernices contains four other Caldwell list objects - C32, C35, C36 and C38. C35 (NGC4889) is the brightest member of galaxy group Abell 1656 contains C35 and is listed on the Dyer and Ling list as requiring 250-300mm of aperture.
In conclusion, with respect to DSO faint fuzzy galaxy searching, I wanted to share this bit of astropoetry that prefaces Dyer's and Ling's DSO Challenge Object list:
"The beauty of the deep sky extends well past the best and brightest objects. The attraction of observing is not the sight of an object itself but our intellectual contact with what it _is_. A faint, stellar point in Virgo evokes wonder when you try to fathom the depths of this quasar billions of light-years away."
Clear Skies - Kurt
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com