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Hi §AB,
Your observation of NGC 6379 piqued my attention immediately because you have noted something that, despite my asking far and wide for confirming observations, I thought I alone had ever seen -- the ring of stars around the centre.
In an old 1992 25cm observation I noted that ring, and then again in 1997. Then in 2002, I wrote an article for US S&T about "My Favourite Globulars" where I wrote:
"NGC 6397 in Ara is another very impressive naked-eye globular, though it doesn’t quite live up to the billing that one might expect given its proximity (it is probably the nearest globular to our Sun), its resolvability (it has the brightest individual stars of any globular), and its enormous halo (the third-largest). Its Shapley-Sawyer classification is IX, but in my opinion NGC 6397 seems more like a class XI cluster, with the large brightness differences between individual stars that are more typical of open clus-ters. Compare it to other globulars with similar brightness profiles — Omega Centauri, say, or M4 — and you will see that NGC 6397 stands apart.
One other unusual feature I have noted but never seen reported by others a nearly complete 3 arc-minute diameter ring of 11th-magnitude stars encircling NGC 6397’s geometric center. Within this circle very few if any stars are resolved. Has anyone else noted this?"
I am delighted at last that someone has also seen it!
Best,
Les D
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