[Lismore Bloke (Paul)]

Hi everyone,

I had another couple of hours out last night looking at the Eri/Fornax region and took a few notes. I was pretty tired after a hard weekend cleaning under the house, so this is a bit brief.

GSC 12" Dobsonian
Seeing and transparency 3.5-4 out of 5.
Nagler 22 and Nagler 9 for closer looks.

NGC 1365 (barred spiral, 9.8 x 5.5 mag 9.52) Large bright galaxy with a concentrated core. Averted vision revealed the outer regions, with a suggestion of the barred shape dropping in and out. I'm not sure if it was the conditions or my tiredness, but averted vision on most objects were like that.

NGC 1404 (4.4 x 4.2 mag 11.7) Galaxy with small pretty much circular centre, with what appeared to be a stellar core. Small star above and to the left.

NGC 1399 (3.2 x 3.1 mag 12) This one had a circular, evenly bright centre with a coathanger shaped 4 star asterism above it, the centre star appeared to be double.

NGC 1387 (2.4 x 2.2 mag 11.8) This was smaller and had a stellar centre with a fainter outer region.

NGC 1389 (2.1 x 1.4 mag 11.5) Another small one, hard to see much apart from a tiny roundish nucleus.

NGC 1379 (2.1 x 1.9 mag 11.1) A small hazy spot with a bright centre. This galaxy mad a neat isosceles triangle with 1387 and 1389.

NGC 1380 (4.9 x 1.9 mag 11.1) This galaxy was larger and brighter than most of the 7 in this field. The centre seemed fairly even oval shaped. The outer regions were seen fairly easily with averted vision, though no detail seen. Quite elongated in shape overall.

NGC 1374 (1.8 x 1.8 mag 12.2) This one was not much more than a tiny oval shaped haze, evenly bright.

NGC 1375 (1.9 x 0.6 mag 12.1) Sitting just to the left of 1374 was this tiny elongated galaxy, not spotted in my earlier look at this region. I would really like to examine this whole area in dark skies.

NGC 1097 (9.3 X 6.6 mag 9.25) I will describe the field as I am sure sure I have this one correctly - I am unfamiliar with the Fornax region!! Please tell me if I have misidentified this one. The field had a somewhat trapezium shaped asterism of mag 11.5-12 stars in the top left of the FOV. 1097 appear as a large elongated haze with a core that brightened to the centre. The fainter outlying regions were seen fairly clearly with averted vision. Again, averted vision seemed to sort of half reveal more detail, then I was not sure I was seeing it. Perhaps this is more due to tiredness ... not sure. Anyway it was a fine sight.

NGC 1097A 0.7 x 0.4) This companion galaxy was seen in the 9mm Nagler as a tiny oval shaped haze with a stellar nucleus. There was a field star further off to the right.

I used the 9mm quite a bit to try and see more detail in the centres of all these galaxies. It revealed things that the Nagler 22 was not showing.

I would have liked to stay out longer as the condition were excellent, but the tiredness beat me. Using a notebook helped me here but a dictaphone will definitely help more. Even the red light spoils night vision if it is bright enough to read by. Cheers, Paul.