James Dunlop's Deep Sky Objects

[glenc (Glen)]

Well done Grant. M92 transits at 8:40pm and is 12 deg up in Canberra.

[Gem (Grant)]

No hope when you live in medium density housing with lots of trees thrown in for good measure!! At least I caught M13 with the ol' dob when I lived in QLD back in the 90's. I have a good view south and a good view west, but nothing below 15 degrees even in those directions.

[glenc (Glen)]

I had a look at these 5 objects last night with my 12" Dob.

D559 this large dark nebula is easily seen at low power.
N6744 Galaxy has a bright core in a large ill-defined area
N6752 magnificent, the 3rd brightest globular
M55 this globular has a bit missing, like it is being eclipsed
N6861 Galaxy is faint and small, next to two mag 12 stars

Dunlop's position for N6861 is 16.4' away in pa 280.
Maybe he saw N6868 not N6861 but 6868 is 42' from Dunlop's position.
N6868 is brighter than 6861 by about 0.5 mag.

The wikisky.org image below (field 56') shows 6868 left and 6861 right.
N6851 (not in image) and N6870 (above 6868) were also seen last night.

[glenc (Glen)]

I have updated this web page with more wikisky.org images and more Dunlop descriptions.
https://picasaweb.google.com/1100488...52146/Dunlop28

It nows includes 150 Dunlop objects
57 galaxies
35 globulars
27 open clusters
3 bright nebulae
3 planetary nebulae
2 dark nebulae and a star cloud
also
16 LMC objects
6 SMC objects

[glenc (Glen)]

I looked at 65 Dunlop objects last night with my 12" Dob, starting with NGC 3766 and working through to NGC 7793.
I missed the ones that were nearly overhead, they are too hard to find with a straight through finder.
The attached file lists all the Dunlop 150. Those marked 18 Aug were seen last night.

[Gem (Grant)]

Do you sleep at all???

[glenc (Glen)]

It only took a couple of hours, 7pm to 9pm. Clouds came in at 9pm.
I used SkyMapPro and a 10" Netbook to find the ones I didn't already know.

[Zubenel (Wes)]

Thanks for the picasa web link .I will definately use it.

[glenc (Glen)]

Most of Dunlop's Deep Sky Objects are on Taki's star charts
http://www.geocities.jp/toshimi_taki/

There are 12 charts to mag 6.5.
He also has a mag 8.5 set of charts with 146 pages

This is an amazing resource.

[glenc (Glen)]

The galaxy NGC 5643 (D469) and the PN IC 4406 make an interesting pair.
James Dunlop found 5643 on 10 May 1826, but both Dunlop and John Herschel missed the easy PN IC 4406.
The PN is 1.8 deg west (to the right) of the 5643.

Here is an image.
http://www.wikisky.org/?ra=14.453120...mg_source=DSS2

[glenc (Glen)]

Last night I saw 60 additional Dunlop objects, there are 25 more for me to see from the Dunlop 150 list.
The dew was heavy after midnight.

[Gem (Grant)]

60 in one night!!?!
I just checked the 150 list myself... I have seen only 56 of the 150... and that is over a life time not one night!
Some work to do for myself....

[glenc (Glen)]

It helps to have 6 DSO in the SMC and 16 in the LMC.
In a Messier Marathon they see 110 M objects in one night.
Maybe we could have a Dunlop marathon.