The Caldwell Objects

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60 & 61 objects with a planetary observer's patient eye. Then, at the 1999 TSP, Larry called me over to his telescope. It was early in the morning, I recall, and I climbed up the tall ladder to the eyepiece. "Whatch'a got?," I asked. "The Mice," he responded. As I casually looked at the little "critters," Mitchell asked, "See the tails?" "Yes," I replied, without giving the matter any thought. "Both of them?" he pressed. "Yes," I replied, 244 again with no hesitation. "Well, I'll be darned, Stephen." Larry said. "Did you know you couldn't see that other tail 13 years ago!" A shiver ran up my spine when I realized he was right. "Welcome to the club, Stephen," Larry said. "I think you're finally — and officially — a deep-sky observer." That night I had grown in some spiritual way, and I had teachers like Mitchell, Wilson, and Skiff, to thank for it. Deep-Sky Companions: The Caldwell Objects
62 Milkweed Seed Galaxy NGC247 Type: Mixed Spiral Galaxy (SABd) Con: Cetus RA: 00 h 47.1'" Dec:-20° 46' Mag: 9.2; 8.9 (O'Meara) Dim: 22.2' χ 6.7' SB: 14.1 Dist: 6.8 million light-years Disc: William Herschel, 1784 W. H ERSCHEL: [Observed 20 October 1784] A streak of light, nearly in the meridian 26' long [and] 3' or 4' broad. Pretty bright. (HV-20) GC/NGC: Faint, extremely large, very much extended toward position angle 172°. O BSERVERS LOOKING FOR A " WHALE" OF A time in the winter sky usually turn their telescopes toward the bright Seyfert galaxy M77 in Cetus, the celestial Whale (actually, Cetus is really a sea monster). But if you dip your telescope tube 3° south-southeast of Beta (β) Ceti, the 2nd-magnitude star marking the Whale's tail, you'll see a sight overlooked by many: the nearly edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 247. In nearly half a century of writing for Sky & Telescope magazine, Walter Scott Houston only mentioned this galaxy three times, and then only in passing. Robert Burnham Jr. discusses it in his Celestial Handbook, but his description of 62 its visual appearance (a "faint haze") is uninspiring. Furthermore, one of the southern sky's most stunning galaxies, NGC 253 (Caldwell 65), lies only 4½° due south of NGC 247. So it's easy to understand why NGC 247 has been ignored. That is, until Patrick Caldwell-Moore made it the 62nd object in his Caldwell Catalog. From Hawaii NGC 247 is visible in 7x35 binoculars. It looks like a thin thread extending from the pinprick of a magnitude-9.5 star that punctuates its southern tip. How can something so faint be visible in small binoculars? Well, that's easy. The galaxy isn't faint; it just has a low surface brightness, so its beauty is The Caldwell Objects 245
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DEEP-SKY COMPANIONS The Caldwell Ob
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DEEP-SKY COMPANIONS The Caldwell Ob
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Contents Foreword by Patrick Moore
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to be more difficult than others, s
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years of thought and observation ar
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XII position, type, angular size, a
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sky and share its splendors. There
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CHAPTER 1 About This Book O N ONE S
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times vog can back up and cause a s
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when there is moisture in the air.
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Herschel's original observations, p
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we use today and to one another? I
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SIMBAD (Set of identifications, Mea
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Caldwell 26. The objects in the Cal
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tion near the edges of the charts).
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nights of observing. Unless otherwi
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CHAPTER 2 The Caldwell Objects 1 1
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Because of its location far from th
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as strongly energized as would be e
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suggested by the patchiness of NGC
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4 NGC 7023 Type: Reflection Nebula
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astronomers found direct evidence o
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and his contemporaries. Why then wa
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6 Cat's Eye Nebula NGC 6543 Type: P
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Eighth-magnitude NGC 6543 is locate
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7 NGC 2403 Type: Mixed Spiral Galax
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according to theory, the gas densit
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8 Ghost’s Goblet NGC 559 Type: Op
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One other thing adds to the cluster
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RA: 22 h 56.8 m Dec: +62° 37' Mag:
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nebula is a near impossibility, eve
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1 0 The Horseshoe Cluster NGC 663 T
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heart of the cluster, dividing it i
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appears to be the edge of a rapidly
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1 2 NGC 6946 Type: Mixed Spiral Gal
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to the west by a row of similarly b
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the south-southwest. NGC 457, howev
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photographs. The cluster's bright "
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play begins at 8:00 p.m., when my e
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ightness by summing the contributio
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jewels. Here are sapphires, rubies,
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15 outer shell falls upon the retin
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"knots" have also been noted by exp
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tight gathering of a half-dozen rou
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1 7 NGC 147 Type: Elliptical Galaxy
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the center. A faint outer halo is a
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1 9 Cocoon Nebula IC 5146 (nebula)
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trickle into the pool surrounding t
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2 0 North America Nebula NGC 7000 T
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egion's size and mass extreme when
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The Caldwell Objects 20 87
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2 1 Box Galaxy NGC 4449 Type: Irreg
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fuse but obvious glow of patchy lig
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qualifier—the word "light" — ha
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with a sheen of light, especially a
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1003, NGC 1023, and NGC 1058 (a nic
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Way) that pop in and out of view as
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RA: 03 h 19 m 48 s Dec: +41° 30.7'
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Through the 4-inch, NGC 1275 is les
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(300,000 light-years), Pal 4 (360,0
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26 Silver Needle Galaxy NGC 4244 Ty
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2 7 Crescent Nebula NGC 6888 Type:
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Observatory, England) still lists a
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pie refractors and inefficient spec
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29 NGC 5005 Type: Mixed Spiral Gala
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s h a edges. r p However, Christian
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ulars; challenge yourself and your
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NGC 7331 is extended much farther t
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away" stars escaped the confines of
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sweep the telescope in a north-sout
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highly suspect by some. However, in
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33 Network Nebula; Bridal Veil Nebu
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A quarter-second later, the star en
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under the dark skies of Seagrave Ob
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35 NGC 4889 Type: Elliptical Galaxy
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magnitude 12.2 some 18' to the east
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36 NGC 4559 Type: Mixed Spiral Gala
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Comae Berenices, the obvious northe
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3 7 NGC 6885 Type: Open Cluster Con
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pressed, stars of magnitude 6 to 11
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of Herschel's telescope. W then e e
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see the dark needle near the third
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sion of a "thin flat ring of enormo
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(which does not appear on Sky Atlas
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not be found in planetary nebulae,
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star in a large naked-eye triangle
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4 0 NGC 3626 Type: Lenticular Galax
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40 NGC 4546 in Virgo, NGC 4138 in C
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Northern Hemisphere, and people cel
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magnitude field star 2' to the nort
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this state of affairs.) The Hyades
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4 2 NGC 7006 Type: Globular Cluster
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each square arcminute of its disk s
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4 3 Electric Arc NGC 7814 Type: Spi
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hook as my "train route." Start at
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230 billion Suns and a physical dia
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4 5 NGC 5248 Type: Mixed Spiral Gal
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of the field. Those living under da
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1" in a mere four days. Clearly, La
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porarily) even the most practiced o
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stragglers are stars that appear to
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4 8 NGC 2775 Type: Spiral Galaxy (S
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Page 219 and 220: At a glance the two stars at the cl
Page 221 and 222: On four plates taken with the Bruce
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Page 229 and 230: 53 The Spindle NGC 3115 Type: Lenti
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Page 241 and 242: 5 6 Pac-Man Nebula NGC246 Type: Pla
Page 243 and 244: the triple-alpha process, wherein t
Page 245 and 246: 5 7 Barnard's Galaxy NGC 6822 Type:
Page 247 and 248: to show how the galaxy's western re
Page 249 and 250: 5 8 NGC 2360 Type: Open Cluster Con
Page 251 and 252: core and limber arms, which, he wro
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Page 257 and 258: 6 0 Ringtail Galaxy; Rataail Galaxy
Page 259 and 260: war. X-ray images taken by the Rosa
Page 261: W. Sinnott's NGC 2000.0 has a visua
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Page 271 and 272: any large telescope that can provid
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Page 277 and 278: NGC 253 is the brightest member of
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Page 281 and 282: 6 6 NGC5694 Type: Globular Cluster
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Page 285 and 286: cosmologist Halton Arp (Max-Planck
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Page 295 and 296: 70 Southern Pinwheel NGC300 Type: S
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Page 309 and 310: The asymmetry remains at high power
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longed look, the object displays a
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times larger than the full Moon. In
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emains of a globular cluster that w
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he classified them accordingly. NGC
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NGC 6231). Under averted vision the
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7 7 Centaurus A NGC5128 Type: Pecul
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Harvard College Observatory's 24-in
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at 16 million light-years. If you s
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78 NGC 6541 Type: Globular Cluster
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seems to fragment into tiny stars,
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sense, evinced by any known cluster
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12th-magnitude double star. The clu
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original with Bayer, but goes back
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Omega Centauri is generally regarde
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glitter all come to mind as the clu
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shattered remains of their diminuti
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It's a nice even disk of l0th-magni
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with the fiery reddish light of hyd
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nebulosity when he viewed the regio
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the two jets of radio-wave-emitting
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pair of tweezers. A fairly bright s
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suggest that our universe may be on
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8 5 Omicron Velorum Cluster IC2391
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Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, however,
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much sky as does the full Moon, tho
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timates, making it 2 billion years
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NGC 5822. Don't be surprised if you
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89 S Normae Cluster NGC 6087 Type:
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fact, if you look about 7' southwes
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lowing night fell clear, when Hersc
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NGC 2867 is a nitrogen-rich planeta
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halfway between M37 in Auriga (200
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9 2 Eta Carinae Nebula GC 3372 Type
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anch of cold, dark material. Indeed
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stretch 16 billion km from the cent
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the object was known to some civili
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east, and a dim lip of gas to the s
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1 0 1 NGC 6744 Type: Barred Spiral
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have been identified in NGC 6752's
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ightest spiral arm(s) to the north,
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his maiden voyage of discovery in 1
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simply takes much too much effort t
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9 5 NGC 6025 Type: Open Cluster Con
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very wide double of near-equal inte
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went out and looked at the cluster
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NGC 2516 is 60 million years young
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and contains some 1,890 members, wh
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9 8 Coalsack Cluster NGC 4609 Type:
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it near the Swan? There is a still
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with the naked eye is a challenge.
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1 0 0 Lambda Centauri Cluster Colli
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position updates to (2000.0) R.A. 1
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Eta Carinae Nebula. But remember th
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9th magnitude. Of the latter, 23 ha
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103 1 0 3 Tarantula Nebula; True Lo
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southern-sky explorer Abbe Nicolas
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ters it has had thus far with the g
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ly east of NGC 362 we find the magn
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the eye ever inward and takes your
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1 0 5 Southern Butterfly NGC 4833 T
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stars"). Lacaille also likened NGC
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is about 7' in length, and nearly 2
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evealed a significant blue-straggle
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ightest stars shine around 4th magn
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egion looks cold and disturbing, no
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The galaxy received some incidental
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This entry is obviously in error, b
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7 N G C 4 0 4 T y L p e n : G t a i
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pointed her 7x35 binoculars toward
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13 NGC 288 Type: Globular Cluster C
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your telescope on Eta Sculptoris an
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19 N G C 6 2 8 1 T y O p e C : n l
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C Name Type Con. R.A. Dec Mag. Size
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C Name Type Con. R.A. Dec Mag. Size
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Appendix B Why Messier Did N o t i
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A typical pattern for evening hunti
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Earth turns, the cluster would clim
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Initially Herschel made his living
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of the heavens with it. For his swe
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tube's front end. This meant that t
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Star in Collo Ceti" about the star
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years, Herschel would observe some
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fluid, but added that ages of obser
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Appendix D Photo Credits in order o
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A Abell426, 101 Acrux, 388, 392, 39
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index Caldwell 44, 173, 176-178 Cal
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and nebulae, 271, 274, 362 and open
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Hevelius, Johannes, 72, 81, 452 Hip
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M103, 49-50, 58-59 M110, 77 MACHOs.
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NGC 3324, 369 NGC 3372 (Caldwell 92
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Perseus Cluster, 101 Phi Cas Cluste
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Τ Tarantula Nebula (Caldwell 103),
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