Australia's Messier

[glenc (Glen)]

Thanks Kev.
Chris, Dunlop is credited with the discovery, or first sighting, of the magnitude 4 "Great Comet" of 1833, C/1833 S1 Dunlop.
He also helped recover Comet Encke in 1822, tracked Comet Pons in 1825-26 and followed Halley's comet in 1835.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=...201833&f=false

[glenc (Glen)]

The latest edition of the
Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage
contains a 15 page article on

James Dunlop's Historical Catalogue of Southern Nebulae and Clusters.
http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/mathphy...2/past13.shtml

[GrahamL]

Thats great Glen , who are the co authors ?

guess you have a copy at home we can have a look at next weekend

[glenc (Glen)]

The co authors are:
Dr Andrew Walsh
Director, JCU Centre for Astronomy, and
Dr Wayne Orchiston
History of Astronomy Coordinator JCU

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

great stuff as usual , thanks for the effort

[glenc (Glen)]

Here is a spreadsheet listing part of James Dunlop's 1826 catalogue.
"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, pp. 113-151"
There are 188 objects in the attached file, those marked * are uncertain.
The file does not include objects in the LMC or SMC.
You can convert it to an Argo Navis file if you wish.

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Thanks for your efforts, Glen. I started using these lists nearly 12 months ago. A great resource

[glenc (Glen)]

The original Dunlop catalogue is here: http://www.ngcicproject.org/Historic...113_Dunlop.pdf
Images of Dunlop objects and descriptions are here: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/dunlop1826/Dunlop28#
The images are 28' by 28' and are from wikisky.org
John Herschel found 211 of Dunlop's 629 objects. This included objects in the LMC & SMC.

[glenc (Glen)]

Attached is Dunlop's catalogue for an Argo Navis.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by glenc

Attached is Dunlop's catalogue for an Argo Navis.

Thanks Glen

[glenc (Glen)]

Thanks Ron. Rob checked the file and says it works OK.
There are 188 objects in the Dunlop4 Argo file.
81 OPEN
51 GALAXY
34 GLOBULAR
12 ASTERISM
4 PLANETARY
3 EMISSION
2 DARK
1 DOUBLE
The LMC & SMC are not included.

[glenc (Glen)]

Last weekend Rob and I observed from Tenterfield airport (altitude 800m) with Rob's 16" Dob and Argo.
We observed Dunlop galaxies from midnight to 4am on Saturday morning and Dunlop clusters from 9pm to midnight on Saturday evening.

It was cloudy and windy when we arrived but cleared up before midnight.
The farmer across the road decided to do some burning off at sunset on Saturday so we had to wait till 9pm for the smoke to clear.

[glenc (Glen)]

The attached file is an 11 page biography of James Dunlop.
It is a chapter from a PhD thesis with the images removed so that the file is not too large.

[Lismore Bloke (Paul)]

Thanks for submitting that Glen. A very well written summary that puts a face to the name.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by glenc

Attached is Dunlop's catalogue for an Argo Navis.

Glen,

What epoch are those coordinates given in? I have a machine readable copy of the data from Dunlop's original report to the Society, and would like to precess those from 1826 to J2000 or JNow, so your numbers would give me a double check.

Andrew

[glenc (Glen)]

Andrew the Dunlop catalogue for the Argo is J2000.
See post #16 in http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=68087
for the main Dunlop objects.