Yes it was an excellent evening. I was especialy delighted
when the skies cleared. It had been getting steadily cloudier
as I drove the hour to Mike's place. (That drive gives one a
_long_ time to engage in clear/cloudy self-doubt.)
But once again Mike manage to pull off some kind of magic to
appeas the weather gods. (I have to conclude there there cant
be too many virgins left in Stanleyville. :) )
If there are folks out there who havent taken Mike up on one of
his observing invites, I highly recommened it.
About a particular galaxy cluster:
I had fun time looking for "Roland's Ear". Its NGC4438.
Roland previously pointed outthat the galaxy cluster
centered around M84 and M86 looked alot like a face. M84 and m86
form two eyes. In about the right places are NGC galaxies for
a nose and a mouth. The mouth is, rather conveniently, a edge-on
galaxy oriented just right. This is a really easy cluster to find
because, as Roland points out, it's halfway from Denebola (Leo's tail)
to Vindemiatrix (closest bright star in Virgo to Denebola).
It turns out that the face metaphor really works. Just about
where you'd expect an ear to be, if the face was looking slightly
in profile, is an ear and earring.
Roland's Ear is a very interesting galaxy. At least in deep
photographs like this one: (slow load)
2000&h=10&w=15&f=gif
(You'll probably need to edit that so it's all on one line.)
Visually, detail is very fleeting, but the DSS image above reveals the
outer parts of its arms to weirdly twisted. It's probably due to a
recent (i.e. merely hundreds of millions of years ago) interaction
with that nearby small galaxy.
That nearby galaxy is visible in amateur scopes. It's in about the
right place to be Roland's Earing.
The "face" metaphore works quite well. In addition to basic facial,
features, and an ear distored by too big of an earring, there is also
an eyebrow high over one eye, a dimple on the left cheek and
chain of smaller galaxies that crudely outline a jaw.
(It's all in good taste, as long as we restrict ourselves to naming
galaxy clusters after body parts above the neckline. :) )
I find all this sillyness makes for a really easy way to remember
a galaxy cluster. Especially in the virgo cluster where ther are
_so many_ galaxies. In fact, there is a different cluster, very
close to Roland's face, that mimics it but only has the two eyes
and eyebrow. I would have been confused into thinking the two
false eyes were M84 and M86 excect that I remembered where
Roland's Nose was.
Clear skies, and giant galaxy clusters for all.
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