M102 - How do you observe it?

I have only seen M102 on one occasion when we had a night of exceptional seeing. On that night I could see it and it resembled M33 on those nights you can see M33.

Otherwise M102 eludes me to the point of frustration. Even my 15x70 Binoculars will fail to give me any hint. All eyepieces in my 5-inch Mak also fail, except for the night outlined above.

Does anyone have any tricks for seeing M102, other than just waiting for the exceptional night? Does it just require a bigger light bucket?

Daryl

Since M102 does not exist as a separate Mesier object, it can be considered as the ultimate in a low surface brightness object. It is a duplicate of M101, which is also a fairly low surface brightnes object. Contrast is of the essences for this, but I have only seen it in a 5 inch scope, both a borrowed Tak MT 130 reflector, and an MN 56 Mak Newt. Getting it higher in the sky helps, as does a dark night. It is indeed like M33 in brightness, but much larger as I remember. I first found it with a Siebert standard 21 mm, so it doesn't require big bucks. It was best barlowed to 14mm, I think. I live under dark skys near Stellafane, but am certainly no O'Meara at the eyepiece.

Are you sure it was M102, Daryl? As other have suggested, there is no M102 and is considered to be NGC 5866.
http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0593.html
As you can see, its shape should not resemble M33 which is a face on spiral.

Anyway, I've seen it with my 4" TV-102 Light Cup under the LM=5.8 backyard sky. It's elongated and forms a shape with the 3 stars that remind me of the body of a stingray: GSC 3871:243, HD 134023 and HD 238424. So look for these stars.

Best of luck and let us know what you see.
Ron B[ee]

I wouldn't have thought that I would have had to explain myself to that extent for the savvy folks on this site.

We ALL know about M101, M102, NGC5457, or WHATEVER your star map happens to call it! So....

My question stands, now that we can forget nomenclature and wondering if I am just an uninformed neophyte ;-)

I call it M102, so whatever you call it - Do you have the same trouble I have seeing it? Thanks.

Daryl

ps I also have read the speculations about NGC5866 but it is well removed and much fainter than 101-102-5457. NGC5322 seems a better candidate but it also is well removed and also does not bear on my original question.

I did manage to see 101/102 Saturday morning at 5AM. I was up getting around for a day of trout fishing and noticed the stars were out. I grabbed my 15x70 binoculars and made another stab at 101/102. It was near zenith and the sky was dark and seeing good. I could make out a faint smudge which I was able to verify that I was really seeing it in the binoculars. I didn't have time to cool my scope down but the binculars did the trick. It is many times harder than M33.

Daryl