Sky and Telescope - March 2017 - 56

MARCH 2017 OBSERVING
Deep-Sky Wonders

+34°
46 UMa

Star magnitudes

5
6
+33°
7
8
9
10

10h 56m

LEO
MINOR
3396
3430

3424

3395

3413
10h 52m

10h 48m

The halo and much of the interior look
mottled, but I can't pick out any structure that indicates the winding of the
galaxy's spiral arms.
Fairly bright and easy to ﬁnd, spiral
galaxy NGC 3430 hangs 1.3° south of
46 LMi, Leo Minor's brightest star at
magnitude 3.8. If you drop southward
from 46 LMi, the ﬁrst modestly bright
star you'll come to is a deep-yellow,
7.5-magnitude gem accompanied by
a 9.4-magnitude neighbor. A yellow,
8.7-magnitude star lies 9′ to their westnorthwest. The galaxy sits about halfway
between this star and the pair, and it's a
bit south of an imaginary line connecting them. Through the 130-mm scope
at 48× I see a 2′ × 1′ oval of light, tipped
north-northeast. At 91×, it softly brightens toward the center. When I boost
the magniﬁcation to 117×, two more
galaxies materialize in the ﬁeld of view
southwest of NGC 3430. The closer one
is NGC 3424, a faint, 1½′ slash escorted
by a 2½′ wedge of four 13th-magnitude
stars south of the galaxy's east-southeastern tip. NGC 3413 is a gossamer,
north-south smudge, but it can be held
steadily in view with averted vision.
At a magniﬁcation of 48× NGC 3430
also shares the ﬁeld with the colliding
galaxies NGC 3395 and NGC 3396.
Their combined glow appears a little
smaller and fainter than the lone galaxy.
At 117× these entangled galaxies each
56

M A R C H 2 0 1 7 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

tip. It's been viewed with 18-inch and
larger scopes. The two galaxies form an
interacting pair about 40 million lightyears away from us. The other object is
a large H II (hydrogen emission) region
dwelling in the very faint, northern
end of NGC 3432. Astronomy author
Stephen James O'Meara detected this
with his 127-mm refractor at 94× as "an
extremely small enhancement of faint
light," yet I saw no trace of it with mine.
Our ﬁnal galaxy, NGC 3294 rests 49′
southwest of 38 LMi. In the 130-mm
scope at 37×, its oval proﬁle tips eastsoutheast within the northern extremes
of a 26′ circlet of several stars, magnitudes 8 to 12. At 63× it covers about
2½′ × 1′ and grows gently brighter
toward the center. The galaxy's countenance becomes slightly patchy at 102×.
Deep images display a lovely spiral
galaxy with tightly wound arms.
As the 64th-largest constellation,
the Little Lion doesn't prowl a very
imposing swath of sky, but its wealth of
galaxies proves its worth as a hunting
ground for deep-sky enthusiasts - even
for those packing small-bore telescopes.
¢ SUE FRENCH welcomes your comments at scfrench@nycap.rr.com.

NGC 3396
NGC 3430

NGC 3395

NGC 3424

NGC 3413

p Use this LRGB image, captured with a 10-inch f/3.8 astrograph, to guide your galaxy hop. Spiral
galaxy NGC 3430 hovers below and between a pair of bright stars (the eastern star has a dimmer
neighbor). From NGC 3430, move to the almost edge-on NGC 3424 and down to the dim NGC 3413.
Or, from NGC 3430, move 24′ almost due west to find the interacting pair NGC 3395 and NGC 3396.

G REGG RUPPEL

harbor a brighter center, with NGC
3395 boasting the more obvious one.
NGC 3396 is elongated approximately
east-west, with NGC 3395 south of its
western end, where their halos blend
together. Seen through my 10-inch
scope at 166×, NGC 3396 hosts an elongated core with a starlike nucleus.
NGC 3395 and NGC 3396 have
undergone at least one close encounter
in the past and are now thought to be
in the early stages of a merger, a show
we're watching from a distance of 85
million light-years.
Rising 2.4° north from 46 LMi
brings us to NGC 3432, a striking,
edge-on, barred Magellanic spiral. In
my 130-mm refractor at 23×, the galaxy
is a moderately faint, slender glow. It
looks very nice at 91×. The brightness
is a little lumpy, and three stars attend
the galaxy. NGC 3432 pierces the space
between two 13th-magnitude stars that
nuzzle the galaxy's ﬂanks. The western
star has a 14th-magnitude companion
farther away from the galaxy. At 117×
NGC 3432 stretches 4½′ northeastsouthwest and is roughly ¾′ wide.
Images show two dim objects near
NGC 3432. UGCA 5983 is a dwarf
galaxy just west of NGC 3432's southern

Sky and Telescope - March 2017

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