Astronomy Adventure – Virgo Cluster Galaxies

I managed to lose my observing notes from a night of excellent dark skies in my heavily light-polluted area but I’m pretty sure these are pictures of at least three galaxies in the famed Virgo Cluster. The Virgo Cluster is part of the Local Group of galaxies of which our own Milky Way is also an outlying member. Many of these little fuzzballs, looking to him much like they do here, were discovered by Charles Messier in the late 1700s but were not identified as actual galaxies until the 1920s.

Obviously, the views of these galaxies are far less gratifying that what you would see with the exponentially more light gathering ability of an 8 or 12 inch telescope. But, with dark skies, many of the galaxies in the Virgo Cluster are within reach of even my small scope and, with patience, the thrill of at least finding them is the same as with a larger scope.