Some time ago I created a Web page on the SMC and in it's history section I had the following information on James Dunlop "James Dunlop of the Parramatta Observatory was one of the first people to observe the SMC with a telescope. In 1820 he became the assistant at the new observatory and was promoted to the superintendent from 1831 to 1847. During this time he catalogued over 7835 stars and in 1826 he published a list of 621 nebulae and a catalogue of nebulae and clusters of stars in the Southern Hemisphere observed at Parramatta in New South Wales.
The Nebula Minor, to the naked eye, has very much the appearance of a small Cirrus-cloud; and through the telescope, it has very much the appearance of one of the brighter portions of the Milky Way although it is not so rich in stars of all the variety of small magnitudes, with which the brighter parts of the Milky Way in general abound, and therefore it is probably a beautiful specimen of the nebulosity of which the remote portion of that magnificent zone is composed"
James Dunlop came to Australia with Gov T Brisbane and C Rumker in November 1821 and worked on a catalogue of 7385 star from May 1822 until March 1826. From April to November 1826 he made a catalogue of 629 nebulae and clusters and also a catalogue of 253 double stars from his back yard. He observed the SMC on 6 nights between 1/8/1826 and 6/9/1826. He returned to Scotland in 1827 and published his catalogues in 1827 and 1828, then came back to Sydney in November 1831.
Dunlop 281 = IC 2714 is "A cluster of very small stars, a little elongated preceding and following, about 10' diameter; the stars are congregated towards the centre, a pretty bright star south, and a double star south following this" according to Dunlop.
He discovered this cluster on 27/4/1826, the night he started making his catalogue of 629 nebulae and clusters. He also discovered Mel 105 that night and re-observed the Lacaille clusters NGC 3532 and NGC 3766 as well.
John Herschel missed both IC 2714 and Mel 105.
Three of these clusters are in this image by John Drummond. http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/l...428-web-ip.jpg
Drummond says "IC 2948 was discovered by Royal Harvard Frost in 1906-8.
The open cluster at the upper right is NGC 3766 (the Pearl Cluster). The strip of four bright stars in the centre of this object is open cluster IC 2944. The round nebula at centre right is RCW 60 and the small nebula at centre bottom is RCW 61. Open cluster 2714 is at lower right and smaller Melotte 105 is lower yet. This object is also known as the "Running Chicken Nebula."
D 67 = NGC 4372 has the longest description in Dunlop's catalogue: "A star of the 6th magnitude, with a beautiful well-defined milky ray proceeding from it south following; the ray is conical, and the star appears in the point of the cone, and the broad or south following extremity is circular, or rounded off. The ray is about 7' in length, and nearly 2' in breadth at the broadest part, near the southern extremity. With the sweeping power this appears like a star with a very faint milky ray south following, the ray gradually spreading in breadth from the star, and rounded off at the broader end. But with a higher power it is not a star with a ray, but a very faint nebula, and the star is not involved or connected with it: I should call it a very faint, nebula of a long oval shape, the smaller end towards the star; this is easily resolvable into extremely minute points or stars, but I cannot discover the slightest indications of attraction or condensation towards any part of it. I certainly had not the least suspicion of this object being resolvable when I discovered it with the sweeping power, nor even when I examined it a second time; it is a beautiful object, of a uniform faint light."
Dunlop catalogued 9 objects on 30/4/1826 including this one.
The star eta Car was near its maximum when Dunlop wrote "(eta Roboris Caroli, Bode) is a bright star of the 3rd magnitude, surrounded by a multitude of small stars, and pretty strong nebulosity; very similar in its nature to that in Orion, but not so bright. Figure 14 is a very correct representation of it; the circle A B is about 1° and 37' diameter, with the star eta in the centre. I can count twelve or fourteen extremely minute stars surrounding eta in the space of about 1'; several of them appear close to the disk: there is a pretty bright small star about the 10th magnitude north following eta, and distant about 1'. The nebulosity is pretty strongly marked; that on the south side is very unequal in brightness, and the different portions of the nebulosity are completely detached, as represented in the figure. There is much nebulosity in this place, and very much extensive nebulosity throughout the Robur Caroli, which is also very rich in small stars."
Dunlop 559 is "A singular dark space in the heavens, of an irregular figure, about 1.5 deg long, and 1.5 deg broad; no stars except exceedingly minute stars in the greatest portion of this space. There is a bright star in each side."
It was recently given the name Bernes 157.
On 4 Aug 1826 Dunlop discovered "A faint round nebula, about 2' diameter, with very slight condensation towards the centre; a double star is north preceding." John Herschel missed this bright galaxy. The NGC wrongly credits its discovery to George P Bond (from Harvard) who saw it using a 4” refractor on 7 Nov 1850.
There was a SN in 7793 recently but it is no longer visible in my 12" Dob.
Halley discovered this magnificent globular in 1677 when he was at St Helena Island. Lacaille also observed it from Capetown in 1751. Dunlop wrote " Omega Centauri (Bode) is a beautiful large bright round nebula, about 10' or 12' diameter; easily resolvable to the very centre; it is a beautiful globe of stars very gradually and moderately compressed to the centre; the stars are rather scattered preceding and following, and the greatest condensation is rather north of the centre: the stars are of slightly mixed magnitudes, of a white colour. This is the largest bright nebula in the southern hemisphere."
Dunlop wrote "(30 Doradus, Bode) is a pretty large, ill-defined nebula, of an irregular branched figure, with a pretty bright small star in the south side of the centre, which gives it the appearance of a nucleus. This is resolvable into very minute stars. Figure 4, is a very good representation of the nebula resolved. (N.B. The 30 Doradus is surrounded by a number of nebulae of considerable magnitudes, 9 or 10 in number, with the 30 Doradus in the centre..)
The nebula was discovered by Lacaille.
Dunlop catalogued the LMC on 7 nights between 3 Aug 1826 and 6 Nov 1826.
He swept back and forth across it 5 times, in north-south sweeps, and drifted across it 6 times.
Dunlop discovered "A cluster of extremely small stars, resembling a faint nebula, about 6' diameter; round figure."
John Herschel failed to include both Lacaille's IC 2602 and Dunlop's Mel 101 in his catalogue.
Did Dunlop see NGC 6326?
John Herschel thought not. He wrote regarding NGC 6326 = h3675, (N.B. -- Referring to the description of Dunlop 381, I see no ground to suppose that this can by possibility have been the object intended by that place and description ['an extremely faint small nebula, about 12 arcseconds diameter, with a bright point in the centre']. At all events, the remarkable planetary character has escaped notice by the author of that description) sweeps 599 on 19/6/1835 and 789 on 6/6/1837.
Dunlop's position was out by 27.5' in pa 91 which is not unusual for him. The PN is magnitude 11 and Dunlop's limiting magnitude is 13 so he may have seen it, although its small 18" size makes it debatable.
Dunlop 548 (N1316) is "A rather bright round nebula, about 1.5' diameter, gradually condensed to the centre" and Dunlop 547 (N1317) is "A small faint round nebula, about 15" diameter" according to Dunlop.
NGC 1316 is an easy object in a 50mm finder. John Herschel did not include NGC 1317 in his catalogue.
NGC 1317 was discovered on the last night that Dunlop catalogued new objects, 24/11/1826. He also found NGC 1350 that night.
James Dunlop started his catalogue of 629 objects on 27/4/1826 and finished it less than 7 months later.
Charles Messier took much longer to make his catalogue, he started on 21/8/1758 and finished more than 22 years later on 24/3/1781. http://www.maa.clell.de/Messier/E/Xt...y/dis-tab.html
Messier used an 8" and Dunlop a 9" reflector.
It is 160 years next Tue since James Dunlop died.
Late in August 1848 Dunlop and a friend strayed from the track and were lost, while walking home from Gosford one night. The winter night in the bush and “the cold and exposure told severely on Mr Dunlop's already shattered constitution.” He died on September 23, 1848 of Urinary Calculus (Kidney Stones) aged 54. He is buried at St Paul's Anglican Church, Kincumber, with his wife Jane, who died 11 years later
No, I have identified about 380 objects and seen most of them.
John Herschel only found 211 Dunlop objects so I have increased that number by 80%.
Dunlop included many faint mag 11 double stars in his catalogue because his resolution was poor.
Most times it is hard to know which double star he saw because his positions were often out by 10' or 20'.
It is interesting that Dunlop died on the equinox, on 23/9/1848 it was at 8:20am AEST.
Today's APOD shows the Dunlop galaxy D600 = NGC 1532. The image was made by Robert Gendler. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...32_gendler.jpg
Dunlop described it as " An extremely faint ill-defined nebula, rather elongated in the direction of the meridian, gradually a little brighter towards the centre." He discovered four galaxies on 29/10/1826, NGCs 1487, 1512, 1532 and 2090. Not a bad effort for one night with a 9" speculum mirror. http://astroprofspage.com/archives/1229
The open cluster Dunlop 358 = Trumpler 23 (top left in attached image) is "A pretty large faint nebula, of an irregular figure, about 6' diameter, very faint" according to Dunlop. The nebulae Gum 50 = RCW 99 (lower right) is 17' from it.
Dunlop catalogued 3 objects on 1/7/1826, the OC Tr23, the PN NGC 5189 and the OC Lac I.7 = NGC 5281.
The image is from http://www.wikisky.org/ See also http://galaxymap.org/cgi-bin/rcw.py?s=91
Trumpler named the OC Tr23 104 years later in 1930.
I have been using wikisky.org to make images of the 425 Dunlop objects outside the LMC and SMC.
Dunlop 255 was interesting. The attched 56' x 56' image is centered on Dunlop's exact position.
Dunlop described D255 = IC5250 as "A small faint elliptical nebula in the parallel of the equator, about 25" long, and 12" or 15" broad."
The long thin galaxy above D255 is IC5249 and NGC7358 is to the right of D255.
John Herschel missed the five IC galaxies in this image.
