The Caldwell Objects

70 & 72
supernova hunters. The galaxy's visual impression
at low power has convinced me that Dunlop,
and not John Herschel, deserves credit for its
discovery. Without being aware of the
controversy, I penned this field note on December
9, 1996: "The fact that there are so many [stars
superimposed on this galaxy] also makes me
wonder what someone like [John] Herschel might
have thought when he saw this clusterlike haze.
In fact, a cluster crossed my mind when I first
picked it up." Christian Luginbuhl and Brian
Skiff write that "several stars are involved" with
the galaxy, including a magnitude-11.5 star about
1.2' northeast of its center and another brighter
star 2.5' southwest of the center. Dunlop's
impression of a nebula that could be resolved
into stars hardly seems far-fetched.
NGC 300's nucleus deserves monitoring. The
Webb Society Deep-Sky Observer's Handbook
reports a "star of mag. 11 at centre — possibly a
stellar nucleus." In November 1996, Arizona
amateur Steve Coe saw the nucleus as "faint,
large, and somewhat brighter in the middle" with
a 17½-inch reflector at 100x. When I looked at the
galaxy a month later than Coe, I found the
nuclear region condensed but fuzzy. It was a notquite-starlike
brightening just southwest of a
roughly lOth-magnitude star. Curiously,
Luginbuhl and Skiff saw no central brightening
through a 2.4-inch telescope at low power; nor
did they see a central condensation in a 12-inch. I
wonder if a flare star is not superimposed on the
galaxy near the nucleus. On the evening of
December 9, 1996, the star positioned with an X
in my drawing appeared bright (roughly 12th
magnitude) and obvious to me; then it appeared
to fade in front of my eyes. I checked in on the
star later that evening and found it to remain
faint, around 13th magnitude. The following
evening, I returned to the galaxy and saw the star
look-
280
ing about a half magnitude dimmer than it did
when I last saw it on the previous night. Now it's
your turn to look — what do you see?
NGC 300's surface brightness is so low that it
almost disappears with magnifications higher
than 23x. I have glimpsed traces of its two major
spiral arms at low power. They're quite a
challenge for a 4-inch under a very dark sky.
NGC 55, on the other hand, is one of the night
sky's finest wonders. It shines two magnitudes
brighter than the sky's most famous edge-on
spiral, NGC 4565 (Caldwell 38), and its form is
just visible in 7x35 binoculars. Of it Houston
penned, "Some deep-sky objects offer beautiful,
breathtaking visual experiences. NGC 55 is one
such object." Luginbuhl and Skiff believed this
galaxy to be "one of the most interesting and
detailed in the sky." It is the highest on my list of
galaxies that show inordinate amounts of detail
in small telescopes.
Many sources claim that NGC 55 is the
largest galaxy in the Sculptor Group, but this is
not so. NGC 55 is a magnificent edge-on barred
spiral spanning 30,000 light-years, so it is 27
percent larger than NGC 300 but 45 percent
smaller than NGC 253. NGC 55 is receding from
us, along with the other Sculptor Group
members, at 140 km per second.
Deep-Sky Companions: The Caldwell Objects