For the last several years, I’ve been traveling to the same location for most observing sessions. Two friends and I decided to head about 15 minutes further NE away from city lights to a new dark sky site we’d been eyeing for some time. With the moon set to rise at 2am, we got set up around 10pm for a good couple hour session.
eat
If I could pick only one thing to have near every single dark site, it would be…a Casey’s General Store! Why would that be? Casey’s isn’t just a gas station and convenience store. They’re the 5th largest pizza chain in the U.S.! Lucky for us, both our regular site and tonight’s new dark sky site have one, as is very common in rural Missouri. My go-to is two slices of hot pizza, a fountain Dr. Pepper, and of course, Casey’s cookies! Tonight would be no different! If you haven’t had the pizza at Casey’s, you’ve really got to give it a try!
drink
As you can see here, we had a good selection with a bourbon, rye, and two scotches. I personally sampled the Frey Ranch 100, a stark contrast to the rest of the bunch. At 100 proof, it wasn’t too harsh, but a few drops of water really helped to bring out the flavors and tame down the proof a bit.
astronomy
What better to do with dark skies than to look at faint galaxies? That’s exactly what I did, taking my first shot at seeing all four of the Box Galaxies. While in the area, 3 other galaxies also popped out, notated below.
Box Galaxies + Friends
I found this grouping to be quite fun and spent a lot of time on it. While this view is quite zoomed out, I’ve also included a more magnified view of the main four themselves, below.
Box Galaxies
N4169 – Brightest of 4 neat galaxies, moderately sized, obvious brighter core, some structure seen.
N4174 – 2nd brightest and smallest of 4 galaxies, pinpoint stellar core, some NE to SW elongation seen.
N4175 – 3rd brightest and 2nd largest of the four galaxies, clearly elongated SE to NW, 6:1, no core visible.
N4173 – Largest and faintest of four galaxies, very elongated SE to NW, almost averted only, no core visible.
Friends
N4185 – Large, somewhat faint, low surface brightness, hints of N to S elongation, face on.
N4196 – Small, bright with a brighter core, round, nearby NGC 4185.
UGC 7190 – Faint, small, right next to a bright mag 14 star, hard to see with direct vision.
As can be clearly seen here, 4173 is very faint with no noticeable core. I also really loved the elongation in these four and the differences in amount of halo visible. If you have an 8″ scope or larger, give these a shot next time you’re under dark skies!