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29 April 1826
Sat 29th April 1826
James Dunlop catalogued 8 objects on Saturday night 29/4 with his 9” reflector, 3 open clusters (OC), 3 galaxies (Gx) and 2 globular clusters (Gb). Five were new objects and 3 were objects that had been found by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1751-52 from Cape Town.
Astronomical twilight ended at 18:42 and the 45% sunlit Moon rose at midnight.
At 19:58 he recovered NGC 3293 an OC that Lacaille had found in 1751
At 20:01 he discovered NGC 3330 a new OC
At 21:56 he discovered Harvard 6 a new OC. John Herschel missed this OC.
At 22:17 he recovered NGC 4833 a Gb that Lacaille found in 1751
At 22:23 he discovered NGC 4945 an amazing, large new Gx
At 22:44 he discovered NGC 5128 an amazing new Gx also called Cen A.
At 22:55 he recovered M83 a Gx that Lacaille found in 1751 with a 0.5” aperture refractor!
At 23:04 he discovered NGC 5286 a new Gb next to M Cen an orange mag 4.6 star.
He didn’t know it but he discovered two bright galaxies that night!
Astronomers realised they were galaxies, not nebulae, after 1920.
The attached files are his descriptions of M83 (D628), NGC 4945 (D411) and NGC 5128 (D482) and his drawings of them, Fig 17 and Fig 20.
The descriptions give the Dunlop number, RA, SPD and number of observations.
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