Messier Reunions/M-Cubed

by stephen saber

an annual ‘marathon’ seems to scare some amateurs off, or just makes it sound like too much work. ‘messier reunions’ might have a more inviting and celebratory feel to it. of course, there are those who dread reunions as well; the bratty kids (virgo cluster), the weird uncle (m73), the daughter who has a hot date and can’t wait to get out of there (m74), the black sheep (m30), et al. 

speaking of the bratty kids, a question arose about difficulties sharpshooting the virgo galaxies while running my m-cubed ‘naked’ (without lists, charts, redlight, etc.). there are red dot patterns i visualize between denebola and vindemiatrix that have their assigned numbers (most maps are too cluttered in this area to give pattern recognition a chance). plus there are only 3-4 galaxies in the entire area that even compete for brightness. i guess i take it for granted as the collective pattern is burned into my brain, but i’ll take a shot at showing what i ‘see’ in a dark sky (i fingerpainted this with my mobile’s pic tweak tool so cut me some artistic slack), and the same rdf bullets fired into a crowd. m84/86 are close to midway between denny and vin. note the crude backwards checkmark starting at 6 com, and even cruder coathanger to the southeast.