The Caldwell Objects

your telescope on Eta Sculptoris and look for a
l0th-magnitude needle of pale light 30' to the
east-southeast. NGC 134 is 7.6' long and its
southwestern tip points to a small but obvious
trapezoid of 9.0- to 10.5-magnitude stars. A 13thmagnitude
star can be seen north-northwest of
the galaxy's nuclear region and could easily be
mistaken for a supernova.
Seen through small telescopes, wafer-thin
NGC 134 appears to be a near twin of the spectacular
edge-on galaxy NGC 4565 (Caldwell 38)
in Coma Berenices. Photographs, however, reveal
the two galaxies to be worlds apart in appearance.
NGC 4565 is a classic example of a
nearly edge-on, nonbarred spiral galaxy with an
oval hub surrounded by a largely symmetrical
disk of dust and starlight. Although NGC 134 is
similarly oriented, it is a different class of spiral,
with hints of a bar. Its bright, very small nucleus
is partly hidden by a series of dark, feathery dust
lanes that delineate the galaxy's clumpy,
moderately tightly wound arms.
Long exposures also reveal bizarre plumes
streaming off of the galaxy's major axis in both
directions like the flagella of some extraterrestrial
euglena. Such plumes are found on many a
galaxy that has an interacting companion.
Apparently a smaller galaxy has gravitational-ly
stretched matter from NGC 134, forming the
plumes. One likely candidate would seem to be
13th-magnitude NGC 131, which lies only 5' west
of NGC 134, but this galaxy does not seem to be
involved; a still fainter galaxy, ESO 350-G21,
maybe the disturbing culprit.
From our perspective, NGC 134 lies in a
haystack of galaxies centered on the impressive
Sculptor Group, which, at a distance of 10 million
light-years, is the nearest galaxy gathering to our
own Local Group. But NGC 134 is a not a true
member of the Sculptor Group, according to R.
Brent Tully (University of Hawaii). Rather, it
belongs to the Telescopium-Grus Cloud of
galaxies and lies 62 million light-years from
Earth. NGC 134 is a massive system with a
diameter of 99,000 light-years, making it nearly
as large as NGC 4565.
17
N G C 5 1 0 2
T y L p e n : G t a i l ( c a S p x u O e y l c a ) r
C o C n e : n t a u r u s
RA: 13 h 22.0 m
Dec: -36° 38'
Mag: 8.8
SB: 12.6
Diam: 8.3' x 3.5'
Dist: 11 million light-years
NGC 5102 is a fantastic lenticular galaxy just 20'
east-northeast of 3rd-magnitude Iota (ι) Centauri.
The galaxy hides in the bright "skirt" of its stellar
"companion," though moderate to high
magnification can easily remove the star from the
field of view. NGC 5102 is more easily spied than
NGC 404 in Andromeda, being both brighter and
farther from its neighboring star, and it makes a
perfect hidden treasure for Southern Hemisphere
observers (or those at relatively low northern
latitudes). Interestingly, this galaxy is not
mentioned in most handbooks and is not
acknowledged in Ernst Hartung's Astronomical
Objects for Southern Telescopes. Yet the galaxy's
size, apparent magnitude, and surface brightness
are comparable to those of M32, the elliptical
companion to the Great Andromeda Spiral. This
makes NGC 5102 a binocular object, albeit a
challenging one because of its proximity to Iota
Centauri. I first noticed the galaxy during a
comet sweep across Centaurus with the Genesis
at 23x. It was a nagging glow just beyond the
glare of Iota Centauri. I was ready to dismiss it as
a ghost image of that star, but the star and the
Twenty Spectacular Non-Caldwell Objects 441