Even though there is a set location for M102 in most charts, books and
software like Stellarium, there will always be an eternal discussion about where
it should have been located. All this story started back in Spring of 1781 when
Monsieur Mechain claimed to discover it, share the information with Charles Messier and then 2 years later
retracted his discovery (Here is the whole story).
Long story short, later there was theories about it: some of them would
say that it was a false-positive, but others that there was a typo in describing the coordinates. My favorite and
the one I found more reasonable is that the typo was writing the Greek letter :
Ο (Omicron) instead Θ (Theta). Both stars in Bootes, but they are 35 arc
degrees separated from each other. A fundamental error if describing the
location with numbers, but a simple trace in the letter that mislead the
location.
Anyways, if the right description is a nebulous object between the stars
Theta Bootes (Asellus Primus) and Iota Draconis (Edasich), then I was in
the right spot. There is a group of 4 galaxies that would fit in the
description, but the brightest is NGC5866 so that is the one I saw and that
most material agreed to be M102.
Taking my eyepiece to that spot wasn’t difficult. I started on Edasich
and hopped only three arc degrees towards Asellus Primus and then looked around
1 arc degree to the east for the smudge. At the time of the observation, I only had my
40mm eyepiece so I used it adding a generic 2x barlow and the results were as
you can see in the sketch: an obvious scratch of light with a buldge in the
middle.
Some time later, in the morning of May 28/2016 I saw it again and this
time using my eyepiece Luminos 15mm (100x). I described as a small and fairly
bright oval. I guess it isn’t difficult to see under suburban skies so all I
have to say is why not to go out and try?
Clear skies,
LG
Edited by: Jennifer Steinberg (editor in chief).
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