[glenc (Glen)]

Scotsman James Dunlop set up his homemade 9 inch (23cm) aperture speculum reflector behind 91 Marsden St. Parramatta, NSW in April 1826. He lived in what is now the southern part of the Woolpack Hotel. On April 29 he discovered the first two galaxies. The last 2 of his 50 galaxies were found on November 24, 1826.

His 9 foot (274 cm) long telescope pointed south. On clear dark nights he moved it up and down sweeping the sky for clusters, nebulae and galaxies with a low power eyepiece. When one was discovered he recorded its RA using a sidereal clock, SPD (90-declination) and a description using a faint lantern. A ladder was needed for some objects, his RA was often out by 10’.

In only 7 months Dunlop found 155 NGC and IC open clusters, 50 galaxies, 40 nebulae, 29 globular clusters and 4 planetary nebulae. Many of these were in the two Magellan Clouds. He also mistakenly included faint double stars in his catalogue of 629 clusters and nebulae, because his telescope had poor resolution.

The attached file lists his 50 galaxies. The brightest is Cen A = NGC 5128, the faintest and smallest is NGC 1483 and the longest is NGC 4945. John Herschel (JH) thought that NGC 1483 was too faint for Dunlop to see. The table gives the NGC or IC number, the constellation, the galaxy sub-type, the 1826 month and day found, the visual magnitude, the size (in arc-mins) and some comments.
The image of NGC 1483 is from the HST.