[glenc (Glen)]

James Dunlop wrote these descriptions in 1826 using a 9” aperture 9’ long reflector at his house in Hunter St. Parramatta, NSW (see image). He made the telescope himself using a speculum mirror that was equivalent to a modern 6” scope.

His catalogue of 629 clusters and nebulae was arranged from south to north by SPD (South Polar Distance). Nicholas Lacaille (1751-2) made the first, Dunlop the second (1826) and John Herschel (1834-8) the third catalogue of southern deep-sky objects.
These three men discovered most of the far southern NGC objects.

THESE ARE THE FIRST DESCRIPTIONS EVER MADE OF THESE FIVE OBJECTS, one of each type. The discovery dates are given below.

Dunlop# Type Const NGC# Date found

Dunlop 297 OC Car NGC 3114 8/5/1826
A beautiful cluster of stars, arranged in curvilinear lines intersecting each other, about 40' diameter, extended south preceding, and north following. (I think it looks like a snail, glenc)

Dunlop 295 GC Pav NGC 6752 28/7/1826
A pretty large and very bright nebula, 5’ or 6’ diameter, irregular round figure, easily resolved into a cluster of small stars, exceedingly compressed at the centre. The bright part at the centre is occasioned by a group of stars of some considerable magnitude when compared with those of the nebula. I am inclined to think that this may be two clusters in the same line; the bright part is a little south of the centre of the large nebula.

Dunlop 230 Nebulae in the LMC NGC 1763 6/11/1826
A very faint rather elliptical nebula, about 2' diameter. This is the preceding and largest of three nebula forming a triangle.

Dunlop 252 PN Mus NGC 5189 1/7/1826
A very faint nebula, about 25" diameter. It is very near a star of the 8th magnitude, and near the north following extremity of a crescent of very small stars.

Dunlop 482 GX Cen A NGC 5128 4/8/1826 Hamburger Galaxy
A very singular double nebula, about 2.5' long, and 1' broad, a little unequal: there is a pretty bright small star in the south extremity, of the southernmost of the two, resembling a bright nucleus: the northern and rather smaller nebula is faint in the middle, and has the appearance of a condensation of the nebulous matter near each extremity: These two nebula are completely distinct from each other, and no connection of the nebulous matters between them. There is a very minute star in the dark space between the preceding extremities of the nebula: they are extended in the parallel of the equator nearly. Figure 20 is a good representation.

References
Drawing of Dunlop’s house by Collinridge Rivett.
Dunlop’s catalogue was called
A Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars in the Southern Hemisphere observed in New South Wales.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 118, p. 113-151