Southern Gems Marathon

[glenc (Glen)]

In the northern hemisphere they have Messier Marathons.
I am suggesting a Southern Gems Marathon for the southern hemisphere.

A Southern Gems Marathon is an attempt to find as many Southern Gems as possible in one night. Depending on the location of the observer, and month, there is a different number visible.

The 116 objects in this list are the NGC and IC objects that were catalogued by James Dunlop and described in the book Deep Sky Companions – Southern Gems by Stephen James O’Meara.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Deep-Sky-C.../dp/1107015014

James Dunlop made a catalogue of clusters, nebulae and galaxies in 1826 from Parramatta, NSW with a 9” (23cm) aperture, 9’ (274cm) long homemade reflector. Its speculum mirrors reflected the same amount of light as a modern 6” (15cm).

The NGC and IC data is from Dr Wolfgang Steinicke’s excellent website
http://www.klima-luft.de/steinicke/ngcic/ngcic_e.htm

The attached files give
1. the number of Southern Gems objects at midnight for each month and
2. data for each object.


Notes
William Herschel and James Dunlop were the foremost discoverers of large, bright deep sky objects.
If you list the 200 largest and 200 brightest galaxies and the 100 largest and 100 brightest globular clusters you will find that:
189 were discovered by William Herschel
51 were discovered by James Dunlop
28 were discovered by John Herschel
25 were discovered by Charles Messier and
22 were discovered by Pierre Mechain

A longer list of Dunlop objects is here
https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/10919/
It does not include the large number of objects Dunlop discovered in the LMC and SMC.

[EpickCrom (Joe)]

Hello Glenn!

This is a fantastic idea and observing project! I'm in. We do need a marathon for us observers in the Southern Hemisphere and the Southern Gems Marathon fits the bill! Thanks a lot for the files and I look forward to attempting the Southern Gems Marathon! Wishing you clear skies mate.

[glenc (Glen)]

Thanks Joe

[Allan]

Great idea Glen. I have the dob ready for you if you want to come over for another visit.

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

Excellent list, Glen. Thanks for putting it together.

Mini monthly marathons puts a new twist, for me, on re-visiting most of these targets.

[gaseous (Patrick)]

Thanks Glen, good work.


For anyone interested, attached is a skysafari observing list to upload.
The file name says it's a word doc, but I just renamed the extension to allow me to upload it (I'm too tight to pay for WinZip and too lazy to get a free zip program). Just change the extension from .doc to .skylist and you should be off to the races.

[glenc (Glen)]

Thanks Allan, Steve and Patrick

[PLR (Piet)]

Thanks for the list Glen,
I immediately got to work and compiled your list in a Meade tour to use with my LX90ACF and Audiostar controller. have uploaded the Mead Tour in text format and also the top 100 object list from ASSA (Astronomical Society of South Africa) in PDF, I have attempted this top 100 marathon last year but with the unprecedented rain we had last year during winter, 3 days before the star party, I developed a huge dew problem, my notes got so soggy I had to give up! beter luck this year.
Chears
Piet Le Roux

[glenc (Glen)]

Thanks Piet.
This weekend is new Moon. You might be able to see all the Southern Gems if you start with NGC 7410 at the end of evening twilight.

[PLR (Piet)]

Thanks for the advice Glen but this weekend the weather prediction does not look good, the whole month has been dismal but the weekend of 24 Feb. looks good and I have hired a cabin 140 km south of the city, Bortle 1 skies, and me and a some friends will be doing a few all nighters, the moon sets at about 20h30, trying to see as much as possible!

[gaseous (Patrick)]

In between cups of tea and general chats, I managed to peel off 72 of these last night, the bulk of which were galaxies I'd never viewed before. Thanks again to Glen!

[glenc (Glen)]

Well done Patrick

[Boozlefoot]

Somewhere, in my files are numerous actual pages scanned from James Dunlop's written observations. These also include amusing anecdotes regarding "the disgusting state" the observatory was left in by other observers - who were plainly not worthy.

It is my intention to retrace these observations using a 60mm/f20 refractor, the main challenge actually deciphering Dunlop's handwriting.

Will post (when I find it) link to his notes.

[glenc (Glen)]

Boozlefoot

Dunlop's notes

See J. Dunlop. Miscellaneous loose sheets (c. 360 ff), 1819 - 1826 File 6

https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-112713379...obj-2611948293

[Boozlefoot]

[QUOTE=glenc;1583103]Boozlefoot

Dunlop's notes

See J. Dunlop. Miscellaneous loose sheets (c. 360 ff), 1819 - 1826 File 6


Champion! Will add those to my collection.

Thanks, Rod

[chrisp9au (Chris)]

As an additional resource for those who use Skytools V4.

Attached file 'Southern Gems STX'.txt is a Skytools observing list.
I generated it manually from Stephen O'Meara's book last year.

You will need to rename it to 'Southern Gems.stx'

Then import into Skytools. Not sure if it works in earlier Skytools versions.

Cheers, Chris

[Zubenel (Wes)]

Originally Posted by Allan

Great idea Glen. I have the dob ready for you if you want to come over for another visit.

We could bring some other light buckets tooooo😉👍✔