Jack Bennett Catalogue

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Obituary
3. An Appreciation
4. The Jack Bennett Catalogue
5. References

1. Introduction

FOR TWO DECADES, starting in the late 1960's, the southern sky was patrolled by a dedicated South African comet-hunter named Jack Bennett. He observed from his urban backyard with a 5-inch low-power refractor. Not only did he discover two comets, he also picked up a 9th magnitude supernova in NGC 5236 (M83), becoming the first person ever to visually discover a supernova since the invention of the telescope.

Bennett was born on April 6th, 1914 and passed away on May 30th, 1990. A long-standing member of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa (ASSA), he was elected President in 1969. The Society awarded him the prestigious Gill Medal for services to astronomy in 1970 and in 1986 he received an Honorary Degree of Master of Science from the University of Witwatersrand. In 1989, at the recommendation of Rob McNaught of Siding Springs Observatory, the asteroid VD 4093 was named after him.

Bennett was a skilled observer and in the spirit of Charles Messier drew up two lists of southern objects that appeared comet-like in his telescope. His first list (Bennett, 1969) was published four months before he discovered his first comet. The supplementary list (Bennett, 1974) was followed three months later by his second discovery.

In his 1969 Presidential Address to the ASSA Bennett said: "As an aid to the recognition of comet-like objects in the Southern sky, and to help observers to eliminate them in comet searches, I have over the past five years compiled a list of 130 such objects visible south of the celestial equator. Nearly a hundred of these have been encountered under varying conditions in comet sweeps using a 5-inch short-focus refractor with a magnification of 21 diameters. The rest have been added, and duly observed with the same telescope, after consulting various sources, notably E. J. Hartung's first-rate book 'Astronomical Objects for Southern Telescopes' which includes details of the appearance in telescopes of various apertures of all but 16 of the 130 objects."

Bennett's 1974 article "Some objects of interest in the southern sky" introduced 22 new comet-like objects "which had been observed (many of them repeatedly) in comet sweeps" since his first list was published.

These two lists have been combined to form the Bennett Catalogue (Table 1). Bennett's list reads like the "Who's Who of the Deepsky". Among the 152 objects are the Tarantula, Omega Centauri, 47 Tucanae, Sombrero and the Silver Coin. Twenty-six of Messier's objects are listed. Bennett noted that including such bright objects may be unnecessary, but added: "it is surprising how easily even these can be mistaken for comets when seen at low altitudes and poor conditions."

Almost half the objects in Bennett's list are globular clusters, which makes sense since these bear a striking resemblance to comets. The constellation richest in Bennett objects is Sagittarius, followed by Ophiuchus. Bennett wrote that "the constellations Scorpio, Ophiuchus and Sagittarius . . contain a bewildering variety of comet-like objects. These are mostly globular clusters and all except the largest defy attempts to distinguish them from tailless comets. This relatively small area of sky contains about a third of all the comet-like objects visible with small telescopes south of the equator."

Dorado also contains many Bennett's - five galaxies and six clusters and nebulae. The latter lie within the Large Magellanic Cloud which, according to Bennett, "should normally be avoided like the plague by anyone looking for comets. There are, however, a few objects on the outskirts of the Clouds which are regularly encountered in comet sweeps, and these have been included in the list, if only as a warning to the observer of the perils that lie ahead of him!"

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Obituary
3. An Appreciation
4. The Jack Bennett Catalogue
5. References

2. Obituary

OBITUARY: JOHN CAISTER BENNETT (1914-1990), by Jose A. da S. Campos

"South African astronomy became poorer and indeed that of international amateur astronomy, with the loss of Jack Bennett who passed away on the morning of 30th of May 1990 in Pretoria, at the age of 76 years old.

John Caister Bennett was born on April 6th, 1914 in Estcourt Natal; his mother was British and his father was from Longford, Tasmania.

Jack became interested in Astronomy when as a teenage, his mother used to point out to him the Southern Cross and the brightest stars and planets, in the evenings after church services, on their way back home.

Since he took up comet searching in 1967, seeing conditions deteriorated due to increasing artificial light pollution and severely limited his observations - I recall him saying that on two occasions, possible new comets were lost due to poor sky visibility not enabling him to make positive confirmations and on the following sweeping sessions they were subsequently lost. Jack had a keen, general interest in Astronomy but his favourite subject was comets, with meteors as a close second; in 1968 Jack took over from the late S.C. Venter, as Director of the ASSA Comet & Meteor Section, a position he that he held until July 1985 when his health declined, due to arthritis."

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Obituary
3. An Appreciation
4. The Jack Bennett Catalogue
5. References

3. Appreciation

JACK BENNETT - AN APPRECIATION, by Brian Marsden

"Jack Bennett was as accomplished an amateur astronomer as one could meet - yet also one of the most modest and unassuming. Although best known for his discovery of comet 1969i, which went on to become one of the greatest of the 20th century, he was never aggressively competitive about his comet hunting, generally being quite content to make accidental discoveries of comets that were already known and being magnanimous enough to encourage other amateur astronomers in this sport. Following a discussion on some of these cases I concluded a letter to him in January 1968 with the sentence "I hope it will not be long before we indeed have a 'Comet Bennett' ".Although almost two years elapsed before this rather dramatically came to pass, he did also make history within six months with the first visual discovery by an amateur of a supernova in another galaxy. The galaxy was Messier 83, and on picking it up on the course of his comet hunting he was astute enough to notice that the novel presence of a bright point in the vicinity of the nucleus made the galaxy look more like a comet than usual. It was on account of this supernova that I finally got a chance to meet him - when he was finally awarded the AAVSO medal for visual nova/supernova discoveries in 1976.

Even when he did happen on comet 1969i, what seemed most to impress his was that he found it while using the ephemerids I had prepared for searching for members of the Kreutz sungrazing group. The other Comet Bennett, 1974h, also happened to be near the Kreutz track, although this time he was not using the ephemerids. It clearly puzzled him to have this comet, an easy object for his Moonwatch Apogee telescope but not obviously moving, all for himself. Although this comet was slightly brighter on the following two mornings, it then faded rapidly, all the while becoming larger and more and more diffuse. This was a classic and well documented case of a comet failure, and the circumstance tended to support Jack's conclusion that the object must just have started to flare when he discovered it. It also tended to support his feeling that other diffuse objects he had detected but could not subsequently confirm, in March 1965 and February 1966, may have been comets that were just ending similar outbursts when first seen."

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Obituary
3. An Appreciation
4. The Jack Bennett Catalogue
5. References

4. The Catalogue

Bennett used a 5" short-focus refractor working at 21x for his comet sweeping. In the catalogue below, there are 22 objects with a Bennett number suffix "a". These objects appeared in a later list (Bennett 1974). Twenty-six of Messier's objects are included in the catalogue. Bennett wrote: "It should be noted that some of the objects are not truly comet-like even under low magnification unless conditions are second-rate. They have been included because such conditions all too often befall the comet-hunter."

The first column of the table gives the Bennett number while the second gives a cross reference to other catalogues. One object, Ben 47, is listed in the catalogue of open clusters by Melotte while Ben 72a is included in Trumpler's catalogue. The RA and Dec follow (epoch 2000.0). The last column contains the chart number in Uranometria 2000.0 on which the object appears.

ASCII version of the catalog

Ben

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

10a
11
12
13
14
14a
15
16
17
18

19
19a
20
21
21a
22
23
24
25
25a

26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35

36
36a
37
37a
38
39
40
40a
41
41a

41b
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50

51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
59a

60
61
62
63
63a
64
65
66
67
68

69
70
71
72
72a
73
74
75
76
77

78
79
79a
79b
80
81
82
83
84
85

86
87
88
89
90
91
91a
92
93
94

95
96
97
98
98a
98b
99
100
101
102

103
104
105
106
107
107a
108
109
110
111

112
112a
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120

121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
129a

129b
130

Other

NGC 55
NGC 104
NGC 247
NGC 253
NGC 288
NGC 300
NGC 362
NGC 613
NGC 1068
NGC 1097

NGC 1232
NGC 1261
NGC 1291
NGC 1313
NGC 1316
NGC 1350
NGC 1360
NGC 1365
NGC 1380
NGC 1387

NGC 1399
NGC 1398
NGC 1404
NGC 1433
NGC 1512
NGC 1535
NGC 1549
NGC 1553
NGC 1566
NGC 1617

NGC 1672
NGC 1763
NGC 1783
NGC 1792
NGC 1818
NGC 1808
NGC 1851
NGC 1866
NGC 1904
NGC 2070

NGC 2214
NGC 2243
NGC 2298
NGC 2467
NGC 2489
NGC 2506
NGC 2627
NGC 2671
NGC 2808
NGC 2972

NGC 2997
NGC 3115
NGC 3132
NGC 3201
NGC 3242
NGC 3621
Mel 105
NGC 3960
NGC 3923
NGC 4372

NGC 4590
NGC 4594
NGC 4697
NGC 4699
NGC 4753
NGC 4833
NGC 4945
NGC 4976
NGC 5061
NGC 5068

NGC 5128
NGC 5139
NGC 5189
NGC 5236
NGC 5253
NGC 5286
NGC 5617
NGC 5634
NGC 5824
NGC 5897

NGC 5927
NGC 5986
NGC 5999
NGC 6005
Tr 23
NGC 6093
NGC 6101
NGC 6121
NGC 6134
NGC 6144

NGC 6139
NGC 6171
NGC 6167
NGC 6192
NGC 6218
NGC 6216
NGC 6235
NGC 6254
NGC 6253
NGC 6266

NGC 6273
NGC 6284
NGC 6287
NGC 6293
NGC 6304
NGC 6316
NGC 6318
NGC 6333
NGC 6356
NGC 6352

NGC 6362
NGC 6388
NGC 6402
NGC 6397
NGC 6440
NGC 6445
NGC 6441
NGC 6496
NGC 6522
NGC 6528

NGC 6544
NGC 6541
NGC 6553
NGC 6569
NGC 6584
NGC 6603
NGC 6618
NGC 6624
NGC 6626
NGC 6638

NGC 6637
NGC 6642
NGC 6652
NGC 6656
NGC 6681
NGC 6705
NGC 6712
NGC 6715
NGC 6723
NGC 6744

NGC 6752
NGC 6809
NGC 6818
NGC 6864
NGC 6981
NGC 7009
NGC 7089
NGC 7099
NGC 7293
NGC 7410

IC 1459
NGC 7793

R.A.

00:14:54
00:24:06
00:47:06
00:47:36
00:52:48
00:54:54
01:03:12
01:34:18
02:42:42
02:46:18

03:09:48
03:12:18
03:17:18
03:18:18
03:22:42
03:31:06
03:33:18
03:33:36
03:36:30
03:37:00

03:38:30
03:38:54
03:38:54
03:42:00
04:03:54
04:14:12
04:15:42
04:16:12
04:20:00
04:31:42

04:45:42
04:56:48
04:58:54
05:05:12
05:04:12
05:07:42
05:14:06
05:13:30
05:24:30
05:38:36

06:12:48
06:29:48
06:49:00
07:52:36
07:56:12
08:12:00
08:37:18
08:46:12
09:12:00
09:40:18

09:45:36
10:05:12
10:07:00
10:17:36
10:24:48
11:18:18
11:19:39
11:50:52
11:51:00
12:25:48

12:39:30
12:40:00
12:48:36
12:49:00
12:52:24
12:59:36
13:05:24
13:08:36
13:18:06
13:18:54

13:25:30
13:26:48
13:33:30
13:37:00
13:39:54
13:46:24
14:29:48
14:29:36
15:04:00
15:17:24

15:28:00
15:46:06
15:52:12
15:55:48
16:01:30
16:17:00
16:25:48
16:23:36
16:27:42
16:27:18

16:27:42
16:32:30
16:34:24
16:40:18
16:47:12
16:49:24
16:53:24
16:57:06
16:59:06
17:01:12

17:02:36
17:04:30
17:05:12
17:10:12
17:14:30
17:16:36
17:17:48
17:19:12
17:23:36
17:25:30

17:31:54
17:36:18
17:37:36
17:40:42
17:48:54
17:49:12
17:50:12
17:59:00
18:03:36
18:04:48

18:07:18
18:08:00
18:09:18
18:13:36
18:18:36
18:18:24
18:20:48
18:23:42
18:24:30
18:30:54

18:31:24
18:31:54
18:35:48
18:36:24
18:43:12
18:51:06
18:53:06
18:55:06
18:59:36
19:09:48

19:10:54
19:40:00
19:44:00
20:06:06
20:53:30
21:04:12
21:33:30
21:40:24
22:29:36
22:55:00

22:57:00
23:57:48

Dec.

-39:11
-72:05
-20:46
-25:17
-26:35
-37:41
-70:51
-29:25
-00:01
-30:17

-20:35
-55:13
-41:08
-66:30
-37:12
-33:38
-25:51
-36:08
-34:59
-35:31

-35:27
-26:20
-35:35
-47:13
-43:21
-12:44
-55:36
-55:47
-54:56
-54:36

-59:15
-66:24
-66:00
-37:59
-66:24
-37:31
-40:03
-65:28
-24:33
-69:05

-68:16
-31:17
-36:00
-26:23
-30:04
-10:47
-29:57
-41:53
-64:52
-50:20

-31:11
-07:43
-40:26
-46:25
-18:38
-32:49
-63:30
-55:41
-28:48
-72:40

-26:45
-11:37
-05:48
-08:40
-01:12
-70:53
-49:28
-49:30
-26:50
-21:02

-43:01
-47:29
-65:59
-29:52
-31:39
-51:22
-60:43
-05:59
-33:04
-21:01

-50:40
-37:47
-56:28
-57:26
-53:32
-22:59
-72:12
-26:32
-49:09
-26:02

-38:51
-13:03
-49:36
-43:22
-01:57
-44:44
-22:11
-04:06
-52:43
-30:07

-26:16
-24:46
-22:42
-26:35
-29:28
-28:08
-39:27
-18:31
-17:49
-48:25

-67:03
-44:44
-03:15
-53:40
-20:22
-20:01
-37:03
-44:16
-30:02
-30:03

-25:00
-43:42
-25:54
-31:50
-52:13
-18:25
-16:11
-30:22
-24:52
-25:30

-32:21
-23:29
-32:59
-23:54
-32:18
-06:16
-08:42
-30:29
-36:38
-63:51

-59:59
-30:58
-14:09
-21:55
-12:32
-11:22
-00:49
-23:11
-20:48
-39:40

-36:28
-32:35

U2

386
440
306
306
307
351
441
352
220
354

311
419
390
443
355
355
312
355
355
355

355
312
355
391
391
268
420
420
420
421

421
444
444
358
444
358
393
444
315
445

445
360
360
320
362
275
363
397
448
426

365
279
399
399
324
367
449
428
368
450

329
284
239
284
239
451
402
402
330
330

403
403
451
370
370
430
430
287
373
334

431
374
432
432
432
336
468
336
407
336

375
291
407
407
246
407
337
247
433
376

337
337
337
337
376
376
408
337
338
408

455
408
248
434
338
338
377
408
377
377

339
409
339
377
434
339
294
378
339
340

378
340
378
340
378
295
295
378
378
456

435
380
297
343
299
299
255
346
347
384

384
350

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Obituary
3. An Appreciation
4. The Jack Bennett Catalogue
5. References

5. References

Bennett, J. C. (1969) Presidential address to the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa, Mon. Notes Astron. Soc. S. Afr., 28(8, August)
Bennett, J. C. (1974) "Some objects of interest in the southern sky" Mon. Notes Astron. Soc. S. Afr., 33(8, August), 107.
Campos, J. A. (1990) "Obituary: Jack Bennett" Mon. Notes Astron. Soc. S. Afr., 49 (9&10), 113-115.
Marsden, B. (1990) "Jack Bennett - An appreciation" Mon. Notes Astron. Soc. S. Afr., 49 (9&10), 115.

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"Deepsky Observers Companion" (http://www.global.co.za/~auke) Copyright 1998 Auke Slotegraaf ([email protected]). All rights reserved. Uranometria 2000.0 copyright (c) 1987-1996 Willmann-Bell, Inc. Page last updated 1998 May 10. I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.