Quote:
Originally Posted by glenc
James Dunlop was the first person to catalogue the objects in the SMC.
On the 1st of August 1826 he swept (moving his telescope north-south along the meridian) the SMC with his 9” aperture speculum reflector at Parramatta, NSW and discovered 13 objects including one that John Herschel missed, Lindsay 104.
On the 2nd of September he made a drift with his telescope stationary and catalogued 5 objects. During a drift he recorded the time when an object crossed the center line of his 45’ field of view and the distance N or S of the center. On September 5 he made another 4 drifts cataloguing 14 objects, followed by 2 drifts on September 6 cataloguing 8 objects. Some of these were duplicate observations of the same object. Dunlop discovered 17 NGC objects in the SMC and also found 9 objects that John Herschel missed.
On August 1 1826 Dunlop catalogued NGC 602.
He described it as "a faint round nebula, about 2' diameter, a very little brighter in the middle, with some minute stars in it."
The James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged it.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241029.html
The attached list of 40 NGC and IC objects in the SMC with their sizes in arc-mins (X’, Y’) is a summary from the pdf file in https://www.asnsw.com/csmc
The largest objects are highlighted in yellow. |
Hi Glen. Thank you for sharing this valuable information! I was observing the SMC last night with my 10 inch dob, we are so lucky to have this incredible galaxy to enjoy
