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Constellation
Report |
 This
section focuses on to the constellation
Coma
Berenices, The Hair of Berenice. According to an ancient story, Berenice was the wife of King Ptolemy. Ptolemy went off to do battle against the Assyrians. Berenice offered her hair as a sacrifice for his safety. Upon his return, she cut her hair and placed it upon the altar. Jupiter is reputed to have descended from heaven and taken it back with him for all to admire.
Coma Berenices made up of relatively faint stars. However, it is located between some well defined constellation. Canes Venatici is to the north, Virgo to the south, Leo on the west border and Bootes on the east border.
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Deep
Sky Report
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The focus of our efforts here will be the deep sky objects of
Coma Berenices.
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 Ok, let's start things off with the beautiful
Spiral Galaxy, M64(mag8.5). Also known as the Black-eye Galaxy is very cool to observe. It shows an significant amount of detail in telescope from about 4" and up.
This beautiful image was captured by... Robert
Gendler. Robert is a past Utah Skies
Astrophotographer of the Month. Do yourself a favor... checkout his site if you haven't yet done so.
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 Next we'll hit
Elliptical Galaxy M85(mag9.78). Also visible in the image is small barred spiral NGC 4394(mag10.9)
One of the hardest things you'll find in your search for the following galaxies is not finding them... the hardest task is identifying which is which. Between Denebola (the tail of Leo) and Vindemiatrix in Virgo, you'll find the largest collection of galaxies in the sky. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. Of these, almost two dozen are Messier objects...Another 1/2 dozen are Caldwell objects.
This beautiful image was also taken by Robert
Gendler.
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 Continuing along we come to another fine
Spiral Galaxy, M88(mag9.5). This is one sweet spiral. Of course the fact that this is a
Robert Gendler shot only adds to the beauty.
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 Moving along, we come to a nice
Barred Spiral Galaxy, M91(mag10.2).
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 Next up is a
Spiral Galaxy, M98(mag10.1).
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 Next up is another
Spiral Galaxy, M99(mag9.8). Also known as the Pinwheel Nebula, this
beautiful shot was taken by... yup... you guessed it... Robert
Gendler. Is this guy good or what!
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 Finishing our Messier objects for the week is
Spiral Galaxy, M100(mag9.4). This is a beautiful, "classic" spiral galaxy. Many of the faint objects you see in the area are other, more distant galaxies. How many can you spy?
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 Continuing on, we come to one of my favorite galaxies of all,
Edge-On Spiral Galaxy, NGC4565(mag9.6). This galaxy is simply beautiful to observe. I've viewed this in telescopes from 6" to 25". From my home in Park City, this object has been a pretty easy find in the 6". From a campsite at 8500' through the 25" it was... well...
almost like the picture... a slender galaxy with a slight bubble toward the core. The dust lane was outstanding... clearly dividing the galaxy.
This beautiful shot was taken by Bruce Hugo, Leslie Gaul and Adam Block.
Wow! These guys do some awesome work... and why not... they have some
awesome affiliations. KPNO Visitor
Program, NOAO,
AURA,
NSF
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 Let's wrap things up with this weeks
Utah Skies Challenge Object, Spiral Galaxy NGC4559(mag9.85). This galaxy will be a fairly easy find in telescopes down to about 4". Given it's proximity to Gamma Comae Berenices (only 2° east of the mag4 star), you might even be tempted to search with a smaller instrument). If you've got a Telrad finder on your scope, you absolutely can't miss this object... assuming you can find the constellation :)
Anyway... by about 6-8", you ought to easily make out an elongated, oval shape. In the 8-10" range, you ought to make out some of the mottling in the core of the galaxy.
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