U 394
06:00 to 06:48
-39° to -50°
Car, Col, Pic, Pup
Dec-Mar

DUE NORTH OF CANOPUS lies the Stern of the Ship, depicted on chart 394. In Thomas Hood’s 1590 planisphere, this part of the sky represents two massive oars plunging into the ocean, while the Dutch cartographer Johannes van Keulen depicted this region as a boiling mass of waves in his 1709 planisphere. On an exquisite celestial globe, 52cm in diameter, produced by Hondius and Veen in 1613, Argo Navis is shown as a finely detailed, majestic sailing ship. The part of sky covered by chart 394 shows a curious human figure, leaning over the edge of the vessel, holding what looks like a plumb line overboard.

FEATURED OBJECTS: NGC 2200, NGC 2201, NGC 2220, PK 247-21.01.

NGC 2200
MCG-07-13-006
RA 06:13:14
Dec -43° 40.9'
Galaxy

Discovered by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope with an 18-inch f/13 speculum telescope. He recorded it as "eF, R, vlbM, 40 arcseconds." On a second occassion he called it "eeF, R."

The RNGC (Sulentic and Tifft 1973) notes that this is a galaxy. Their coded description reads VF,DIF,BM.

NGC 2201
MCG-07-13-007
RA 06:13:26
Dec -43° 42.9'
Galaxy

Discovered by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope with an 18-inch f/13 speculum telescope. He recorded it as "eF, vS, pslbM; rather a doubtful object." On a second occassion he called it "eF, R."

The RNGC (Sulentic and Tifft 1973) notes that this is a galaxy. Their coded description reads BM.

PK247-21.01
RA 06:25:28
Dec -39° 25.6'
Planetary nebula

NGC 2220
RA 06:21:46
Dec -44° 46.0'
Open cluster

Discovered by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope with an 18-inch f/13 speculum telescope. He recorded it as "a poor, very coarsely scattered, but brilliant cluster of 8th class. Place of a star 8th mag = Brisbane 1222, the chief in the cluster."