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In this episode of Star Hopping with Kissimmee Park Observatory, we'll look at the Coma Berenices
region, and show you how to find these beautiful deep sky objects:
The Sunflower Galaxy The Black Eye Galaxy
And the Edge On Spiral, NGC4565
Alright, Let's Go Star Hopping!
Hey Hello Hi and welcome to Episode 17 of Star Hopping with Kissimmee Park Observatory!
I'm Dave Hearn, and I'm all fired up to be your host. In this series of programs we'll
show you the most beautiful sights in the night sky, and explain exactly how to find
them with your binoculars or telescope.
So we’re continuing with our galaxy review of all the amazing targets currently rising
into of the eastern sky. And we’re going to concentrate on a faint constellation that
contains few stars, but loads of galaxies of all types, Coma Berenices, Coma lies between
Canes Venatici and Virgo, and lies right on the northern fringes of the Realm of the Galaxies,
which is, as I’ve mentioned lately, a supercluster of galaxies.
The incredible scale of this is just mind boggling. An average galaxy is home to between
100 and 500 MILLION stars. in this area of sky, the Virgo Supercluster, there are approximately
1500 separate galaxies! Ok, math assignment out there - with these numbers, post down
below in the comments how many stars that is!
So after you put your calculators away and start looking through your scope again, you’ll
see that as you scan through the Realm with a low power eyepiece in your telescope, it
is not unusual to have 3 or 4 galaxies within the view at any one point. We’ll review
the Realm in the next couple episodes of Star Hopping, and we won’t even begin to scratch
the surface on what’s available for an intrepid Galaxy hunter.
But we’re still scanning around outside the main cluster itself, in northern Coma
Berenices. So the galaxies are not as thick here, but no worries; some of the most amazing
galactic targets in the sky can be found in this faint constellation.
Coma Berenices represents Bernice’s hair, the owner of which was the wife of Greek King
Ptolemy. Queen Bernice promised to cut her long blond hair short, if her husband returned
safely from a war. When he did indeed return safely, she did as she vowed, and placed her
shorn locks on an altar. The hair mysteriously disappeared during the night, (probably taken
by some groupie), but the theft angered the king and queen. The court astronomer, in order
to appease the royals, announced that the offering had achieved such favor with the
goddess Aphrodite, that she had placed the hair in the sky for everyone to see. He was
perhaps one of the more clever and imaginative early astronomers, and he kept his job!
So enough with mythology; on to our galaxy targets for this episode. Before we get to
the Coma region, we will have to make one one stop in Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs,
the constellation we checked out last week. Let’s start with the beautiful spiral galaxy
Messier 63, otherwise known as the Sunflower Galaxy. M 63 was the very first discovery
of Charles Messier's friend, Pierre Mechain (which is pronounced “Mayshawn”; I was
incorrect in my previous pronounciations). Mechain located the spiral on June 14, 1779.
On the same day, Messier included it as the 63rd object in his catalog. M63 is reasonably
bright, glowing at magnitude 8.6, and it is about 10 minutes of arc in diameter, about
a third the size of the Full Moon.
To locate M63, we’ll be starting from the brightest star in Canes Venatici, Cor Caroli.
About 3 degrees to the lower left you will see four 5th magnitude stars, the brightest
of which is 20 Canes Venaticorum. A half degree to the upper left is 19 Canes Venaticorum
at magnitude 5.8. New move 2 degrees to the left and slightly upwards, and you will see
the oblong shape of Messier 63.
This galaxy’s spiral pattern resembles a giant celestial sunflower: a large central
hub surrounded by tightly wound spiral arms. M63 has been classified as type Sb or Sc,
displaying a patchy spiral pattern; its spiral features show up in a bunch of short arcs
rather than long well-defined arms. It has a grainy appearance in astrophotos, like this
one from KPO.
Okay, on to Coma Berenices. As I mentioned, the constellation itself is composed of several
fainter stars, so it makes things a little difficult to navigate. Our first target is
the famous Black Eye Galaxy, Messier 64. M64 has a dark lane running though it just below
it, bust below the central nucleus of the galaxy, which makes it look like someone gave
it a shiner! This feature can be seen visually using averted vision.
In our search for M64, we’ll be starting from Vindemiatrix, a second magnitude star
in northern Virgo. About 7 degrees to the left of Vindemiatrix, is Diadem, the Queen’s
crown, the brightest star in Coma. So go ahead and move that way. While we’re here, just
to the lower left about a half degree away, are two small and faint globular clusters:
Messier 53 and NGC 5053. The numbering is just a coincidence! See if you can pick them
up as bonus objects, but be aware: 5053 only glows at magnitude 9.5, so it’s definitely
a challenge object.
Our next move is a difficult one - move about 3 degrees to the left and slightly up, to
6th magnitude Comae Berenices. Finally move about two and a half degrees upwards, and
you’ll spy M64 moving into your eyepiece.
Spend a couple minutes and look for the black eye mark in this galaxy, and then see if your
friends can see it. It’s fun to share these kind of views with your fellow astronomers.
Our last target is one of the most famous edge on spirals in the sky, and we featured
it a couple weeks ago in our Galaxies Extra, the famous Needle Galaxy, NGC 4565. The path
to this one is a difficult star hop, as there are some long moves at the start and some
fainter stars at the end. So let’s fearlessly press on!
We’ll be starting back at Diadem, Alpha Comae Berenices. Star out moving 10 degrees
to the upper left to 4th magnitude Beta Comae Berenices. Now, make a hard right turn and
move 10 degrees upward to 4th magnitude Gamma Comae Berenices. Remember, 10 degrees in the
sky is measured out by holding your fist at arms length - that might help you judge this
distance in these first two hops. Now comes the leap of faith into black sky. Move about
3 degrees down and to the right. You’ll be looking for a ghostly line about a half
degree long. Did you find it? Great - you’ve located the Needle Galaxy, NGC 4565.
NGC 4565 is one of the most prominent and famous edge-on spiral galaxies in the sky,
and is another showpiece for amateur astronomers. It’s surprisingly faint at magnitude 9.6,
but the light is compressed into that thin line, so it stands out in even smaller telescopes.
This is another serious miss by Charles Messier; the galaxy was discovered by William Herschel
in 1785, and lies approximately 40 million light years away.
What a great set of galaxies we saw this week. We started our with the pretty Sunflower Galaxy,
M63 in Canes Venatici. Then we trekked out from Vindemiatrix in Virgo into the dim constellation
of Coma Berenices, to first find the interesting Black Eye Galaxy, Messier 64. Then we did
our difficult star hop to the amazingly impressive Needle Galaxy, NGC 4565. If you liked those,
you’ll be good for next week’s show, as we will show you more amazing standouts in
the line of targets that reside in the Realm of the Galaxies.
As a reminder, you can find the show notes at http://kpobservatory.org/SH017.
I hope you've enjoyed star hopping around the Milky Way. We'll continue to bring you
these video astronomy tutorials every week on Thursday, and in their podcast format on
Fridays. They will be designed to help you find deep sky objects that are up in the sky
at the time we post them on the Internet.
The reason we create these video and podcasts is to help beginning amateur astronomers learn
the sky and get more enjoyment out of their telescopes and astronomy in general. If you
have any requests or suggestions of potential targets in the night sky that you would like
to see us present, just let us know down in the comment section below, or on our website
blog.
Don’t miss our free Field Notes for this episode, basically the script of the show,
with all the images and start charts we use for our star hopping activities. You can get
them for free at kpobservatory.org/FieldNotes.
If this is the first time you’re checking out Star Hopping, and if you found this video
useful, please consider Subscribing to our Channel by clicking the Big Yellow Button
down there, click the Thumbs Up on the video, and please share this tutorial out to your
friends who like looking at stars. Also, as I just mentioned, please feel free to leave
any question or comment below, and we will be sure to respond quickly.
Also, please follow KPO on Facebook, where we post all of our astrophotos and keep everyone
informed about upcoming astronomical events. We'd love to hear from you to discuss all
this great stuff up in the sky.
All the links to these places including our website kpobservatory.org, can be found below
in the Episode Notes as well.
And finally, if you feel this video provides you value, and if you'd like to see more,
please consider supporting us on Patreon, where for a small amount per video, you can
support our efforts and let us make even more great astronomy tutorials like this one.
Well thanks again for watching, and we'll see you next time on Star Hopping with Kissimmee
Park Observatory.