Hi all, I've known about this galaxy for some time - it's printed on my SkyAtlas 2000, but has anybody ever tried to observe/photograph it?

www.universetoday.com/am/publish/leo1_040906.html

The glare from Regulus (the brightest star in Leo) would be strong....and it's not that hard to find!

Keith..

That'd be a tough cookie alright. Why not give it a lash?

Cheers

Dave

I'd never get it just yet, I'm waiting on my C80ED-RGT

Why don't you have a go Dave??

Keith..

:roll:

Spose so... :wink: Looks like it might clear up here - I was hoping to get out and do some PEC - if I get a chance, I slew over to Regulus and see what gives...

Cheers and thanks for the work :cry:
Dave

That would be a nice achievement alright. But, I find it hard to get my head over how this photo was taken:
This remarkable photograph was produced by astronomer, Bernhard Hubl, at his imaging site in Schlierbach, Austria over a period of three nights during mid-March, 2006. This picture required over eight hours of exposure and was produced through a four inch aperture refractor with a 2 mega-pixel astronomical camera.

1- You would think that a 2 megapixel camera could not really achieve that kind of clarity

2. It doesn't say how long each exposure was, but I am guessing that it took 3 nights (3 attempts) to do it, but the best of the 3 was used perhaps?

3. A 4 inch refractor? Wow! Amazing detail caught there! It must be tracking on an AP mount! And the 2MP camera must not be too bad after all!

Seanie.

I don't know if it's even possible to see Leo1 visually, but I've never been able to pick it out even with my 20" f/4 (no filters.) I suspect that the glare from Regulus is scuppering any chance I might have! It's fun trying though!

Phil.

Best I could do with one 120 sec exposure before the clouds rolled in. Now we know why a ton of lumiance data is required...

Cheers

Dave

Hi all, I've known about this galaxy for some time - it's printed on my SkyAtlas 2000, but has anybody ever tried to observe/photograph it?
The glare from Regulus (the brightest star in Leo) would be strong....and it's not that hard to find!Keith..

Not only is Leo I very challenging to image, it's also very difficult to visually observe. An open framework Newtonian scatters light from Regulus off dust, tube, focuser etc making things tricky although not impossible as I know of observers such as Tom Polakis who actually found Leo I quite easy with a 13-inch! Alistair Ling suggests well baffled refractors (presumably large ones) with spotless optics for viewing low surface brightness galaxies such as this.

Tough one alright! Is that Regulus at the top of the image?

Keith..

Regulus was miles away - the tiny FOV barely covers Leo1 and is small enough not to have Regulus anywhere near - but as you can see, its a very dim object...

I have to say Dave, I dont see it? :oops:
Is all that background noise the object ?

QED

The few stars you can see are presumably the brighter Leo1 stars. The dimmer ones are swamped by the noise. If the sky had stayed clear, I could have gopr a few more shots and stacked them, improving the S/N ratio. But as ever, the weather wasn't co-operating.

But Leo1 fills the image above - my pointing accuracy was bang on to about 10 arcseconds of the centre of Leo1.

Dave

fair enough.