The Sky for May

In the Spring skies between Leo and Bootes the Constellation Coma Berenices holds one of the nearest open clusters, Melotte 111. 

At a distance of 300 light years away Mellotte 111 spans more than 5 degrees and it’s collection of stars range in brightness between 5th to 10th Magnitude. It will nicely fill the view of a pair of 7x50 binoculars but may also be seen visually without binoculars under dark skies.   The cluster is also your guide to the spring cluster of Galaxies that can be found with small to medium sized telescopes.  In an 8 inch or larger telescope NGC 4565 should be your first Galaxy to look for. Here is good list of objects to find at this time of year.

NGC 4565 is a well-known edge-on spiral with highly visible dust lane from end to end. It's the largest galaxy of its type and has a visual magnitude of 9.6. The galaxy is found one degree due east of 17 Coma Berenices.
M64, the Black Eye Galaxy, is a bright (8.5) compact spiral one degree east-northeast of 35 Comae. The "black eye" can only be seen under ideal conditions with large telescopes. The galaxy is over 20 million light years away.
M53 is a globular star cluster one degree northeast of alpha Comae. The brightest Messier in the constellation (7.7), it tends to be most impressive with larger telescopes, which are needed to resolve the individual stars. The cluster is thought to be 65,000 light years away.

Malcolm Scrimger