Quote Originally Posted by akarsh View Post
I was impressed that one could tease out the beginnings of one of the antennae, which I first noticed when observing with John T's 25" scope. I am inclined to believe (and this is where I regret not logging well) that I could reproduce this even with the 18". Of course, neither aperture has shown me the full tidal tails.

This object is really quite the sight through Jimi's 48".
After noting the glaring absence in my logbooks of an observation of this pair through my 18", I made sure to observe it this year: thrice. The first time, I really didn't pick up much. I was at Lake Sonoma, a Bortle 4-ish site frequented by Steve Gottlieb amongst others, with plenty of light pollution to the south. The second time, I was at a much darker site with excellent (Bortle 2-esque) southern skies, but the transparency was so-so. At high power, I was able to pick up the several knots of starburst that dot the outline of NGC 4038, and a prominent brightening in the body of NGC 4039. I also noted that the brightness of NGC 4038 has an asymmetric "hole" in it, so the star-forming regions and the nucleus form a sort of ring of light. Of course, this is a piece of cake to see in Jimi's scope where Howard Banich likened it to flying over a city at night and seeing the lights, but it was a joy to ferret this out in an 18" (it is not too difficult).

Third time is the charm. I did see the beginning of the tidal plume that I mention in the above observation. I was at the "Hovatter Road Antenna Site" in Arizona, which I rate as Bortle 3, but the transparency must have been good and there weren't any light domes in the southern direction. Plus, it rises a tad higher at the lower latitude. The plume was barely, but reproducibly visible just off the edge of NGC 4039. This is the tidal tail of NGC 4038. I also sensed that there seemed to be a slight condensation within the plume, separated slightly from the bodies of NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 by a less brighter region.

Clear Skies
Akarsh