U 322
08:48 to 09:20
-17° to -28°
Hya, Pyx

FEATURED OBJECTS: NGC 2784, NGC 2815, NGC 2835.

NGC 2784
ESO497-G023
RA 09:12:17
Dec -24°10.4'
Galaxy

Discovered in 1784 by William Herschel (H I-059) "S cBM lE milky."

h: "B, pL, mE, nearly in parallel; psmbM." On a second occassion he called it "B, L, mE, pgmbM, 4' long, 90 arcseconds broad, position = 63.7 degrees."

In 1972 Houston wrote: "Compare the visibility of NGC 2713 with the galaxy NGC 2784 near the Hydra-Pyxis boundary. Although these two galaxies are very similar in size and shape, NGC 2784 is considerably brighter, with a total visual mag of about 10. It is within reach of a 6-inch, and at times my 4-inch shows it dimly. The able French amateur Gauthier even reports that he found it in a 2.2-inch, though with difficulty, about 5' west of a 10th mag star." See also NGC 2835 and NGC 2815.

Hartung notes: “the bright elliptical centre of this edgewise spiral is about 2’ x 1’, the faint extensions lying in pa 65 deg reaching to about 4’. 15cm shows only this centre . . this is a good telescopic object in a field of a few scattered stars.”

Steve Coe, observing with a 17.5” f/4.5 at 100X, notes: “pretty Bright, Elongated , Large, very bright Nucleus small Andromeda Gal, nice Milky Way field, averted vision makes it grow a lot at 100X.”

AJ Crayon, using an 8” f6 Newtonain, notes: “is a spiral galayx. It is 5'x4' and 11m in a northerly position angle, has a much brighter center of 2'x1' in same position angle but is offset to the southeast. This galaxy is between two 8m stars.”

Tom Lorenzin: “11.8M; 3' x 1' extent; bright oblong with little brighter center; !good supernova prospect!.”

Thornton Page ("Galaxies and the Universe", Chapter 13 - Binary Galaxies) includes this galaxy in the NGC 2997 Group. Members include NGC 2997, NGC 2835, NGC 2784, NGC 2848 & NGC 2763.

Other names: “UA152,E497-23”. Inclination: (face-on, in degrees) 65 Total photoelectric blue mag 11.30 Total colour index 1.14 Logarithm of the angular diameter D25 (arcminutes) 1.74 Blue photographic magnitude 11.15 This galaxy is included in a sample of galaxies with velocity less than 500km/s with respect to the centroid of the Local Group. [Nearby Galaxies. Schmidt K.-H., Priebe A., Boller T. (Astron. Nachr. 314, 371 (1993))]

NGC 2815
ESO497-G032
RA 09:16:18
Dec -23°38.1'
Galaxy

Discovered in 1784 by William Herschel (H III-242) "vF, lE, S, 1' diameter."

h: "F, R, or vlE, glbM, 25 arcseconds."

Houston notes that this galaxy lies about halfway between NGC 2784 and NGC 2835. He calls it "considerably more difficult . . 3'x1' in size and magnitude 11."

Steve Coe, observing with a 17.5” f/4.5 at 100X, notes: “pretty Faint, Elongated , Small, not much at 135X.”

NGC 2835
ESO564-G035
RA 09:17:52
Dec -22°21.3'
Galaxy

Missed by both Herschels; included in the NGC by Barnard, who noted it as "F, * 10 inv f, bet 2 st 9"

In 1972 Houston wrote about observing NGC 2784: "If you are using a rich-field telescope with a wide-angle ocular, NGC 2835 might just be in the same field. This 5'x2' galaxy seems easier to me than NGC 2784. About half-way between them lies a considerably more difficult galaxy, NGC 2815."

Tom Lorenzin: “12M; 6' x 3' extent; fairly large and faint; axis oriented NNE-SSW; many-armed spiral evident with larger aperture; !good supernova prospect!.”

Steve Coe (1992, The Deep-Sky Observer, Webb Society, Issue 1) observing with a 17.5-inch f/4.5 at 100x notes: "Somewhat bright, little elongated, pretty large, brighter in the middle, not much."

Included in the CCD-atlas of Ryder S.D. & Dopita M.A. (1993) “An H-alpha Atlas of Nearby Southern Spiral Galaxies” Astrophys.J.Suppl. 88, 415. They note: “As a type Sc and being almost face-on, NGC 2835 presents a wealth of H II regions well suited to abundance gradient studies and the like. Despite having a well-ordered multi-arm spiral pattern with a fair degree of symmetry, the H II regions in the northern arms appear to be much more luminous than their southern counterpart . . inspection of optical images confirms that the southern arms are not as well developed in their outer parts of those in the north.”