[ngcles]

Hi Glen & All,

I know I tend to have a few wise-cracks at Lacaille's expense from time to time (I guess it's easy as he is long molderin' in the ground) but he really was a great astronomer and keen-eyed observer.It is one thing to find something from a map or other resources, quite another to discover something in "un-tilled earth".

The telescope he used was well suited to his objectives (sorry for the bad pun) -- Lacaille's observations were mainly astrometric to make observations of the southern sky and fix the positions of the stars and make a catalogue. Lacaille wasn't a deep-sky observer except that he found quite a few objects during the course of his survey work. There were much larger 'scopes available then -- they just weren't needed for his purposes.

I think his most noteworthy discovery was M83. Given the surface-brightness and the aperture (less than 1/2 the size of the finders we use today), it was a very considerable achievement. M83 was the first deep-sky object discovered that is outside the Local Group (though he knew it not).

I just wish he hadn't (1) Cut-up Argo and (2) Devised so many tiny and inconspicuous constellations.


Off Topic: two thousand posts for Glen C before the New Year? Looks likely!


Best,

Les D