Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - 41

One Amazing Night: Herschel's Spring Success
4908 as a separate object, immediately north of IC 4051,
but observers wishing to view the correct Herschel object
should locate IC 4051, the southernmost object in a chain
of four galaxies.
Three more Herschel discoveries stand south of IC
4051. NGC 4921 is the largest and most brilliant of the
three, a face-on barred spiral with a bright core in a diffuse outer spiral structure. Immediately south-southeast
of it shines NGC 4923, a concentrated lenticular galaxy.
The third object is NGC 4911, a high surface brightness,
compact spiral. Northeast of NGC 4921 is the edge-on
lenticular galaxy NGC 4927. A roughly similar distance to
its northeast is another lenticular, the slightly larger and
more luminous NGC 4944. William described the galaxies together as, "Three. The two following pretty near
each other. The south preceding about 8′ distance. The
time is that of the two."
At this point, William left behind the main concentration of the Coma Cluster, though a few of its outliers
remained to be recorded in the register. The ﬁrst of these,
the aforementioned NGC 4952, was another case of a
previously discovered object being identiﬁed as a new one
when a diﬀerent reference star was used to determine
its position. But a look 1½° to the south of NGC 4952
°
revealed another Coma Cluster member, the elliptical galaxy NGC 4957. To its northeast was a much closer spiral
galaxy, NGC 4961.
The ﬁnal three outlying Coma Cluster members,
arrayed around the bright star Beta (β) Comae, were all
described as very faint objects. NGC 4983 is the smallest of the trio; in photographs, it shows a probable barred
spiral with a bright core and a faint outer disk. NGC 5000
and NGC 5032 are nearly face-on barred spiral galaxies
with inner ring structures.
The pace now slowed dramatically for the Herschels as
observable objects thinned out considerably. Three widely
separated faint galaxies came into view: NGC 5116, NGC
5251, and NGC 5263. Of the three, NGC 5263 may be
the most appealing target, a small nearly edge-on galaxy
to the east of the spectacular globular cluster M3. One
can imagine William's sense of relief as the large, bright
cluster came into the eyepiece, a brilliant object appearing
after a hectic night of observing dozens of fainter objects.
Herschel was now entering a section of sky that he'd
swept on May 17th of the previous year, recording the
large, loose globular NGC 5466 as well as the faint galaxies NGC 5635 and NGC 5735. He found nothing new this
night until, more than 90 minutes later, he spotted NGC
5958, then NGC 6001, two small, faint face-on spiral
galaxies in Corona Borealis. The long night of discovery
was at an end.
As the accompanying table shows, the ﬁnal tally was
remarkable, with 74 objects recorded during the marathon
session. Perhaps we should pause to acknowledge the
remarkable persistence and determination of Caroline,

NGC
3196
3245
3265

Herschel No.
III 348
I 86
III 349

Con
Leo
LMi
LMi

Mag (v)
14.9
10.8
13.5

Size

RA

Dec

0.3′ × 0.2′

10h

18.8m

+27° 40′
°

3.2′ × 1.8′

10h

27.3m

+28° 30′

1.3′ × 1.0′

10h

31.1m

+28° 48′

32.3m

+27° 40′

3274

II 358

Leo

12.6

2.1′ × 1.0′

10h

3277

II 359

LMi

11.7

1.9′ × 1.7′

10h 32.9m

+28° 31′

3380

II 360

LMi

12.7

1.7′ × 1.3′

10h 48.2m

+28° 36′

3400

II 361

LMi

13.4

1.3′ × 0.8′

10h 50.8 m

+28° 28′

3.5′ × 2.6′

10h

51.3m

+27° 59′

1.4′ × 1.1′

10h

51.4m

+28° 07′

1.7′ × 0.8′

10h

54.4m

+27° 14′

7.1′ × 5.2′

11h

00.4m

+28° 58′

03.2m

+27° 58′

3414
3418
3451
3486

II 362
II 363
II 364
I 87

LMi
LMi
LMi
LMi

10.9
13.4
13.1
10.5

3504

I 88

LMi

11.8

2.7′ × 2.1′

11h

3510

II 365

LMi

12.3

4.0′ × 0.8′

11h 03.7m

+28° 53′

3512

II 366

LMi

12.9

1.6′ × 1.5′

11h 04.1m

+28° 02′
°

3527

III 350

UMa

13.9

1.0′ × 0.9′

11h 07.3m

+28° 32′

1.0′ × 1.0′

11h

10.7m

+28° 46′

0.6′ × 0.5′

11h

10.7m

+28° 42′

1.2′ × 0.8′

11h

31.7m

+28° 09′

0.5′ × 0.4′

11h

31.9m

+28° 21′

58.1m

+27° 53′

3550
3552
3713
3714

III 351
III 352
II 367
III 353

UMa
UMa
Leo
UMa

13.2
14.5
13.3
13.3

4004

III 354

Leo

13.6

1.8′ × 0.6′

11h

4008

II 368

Leo

11.8

2.5′× 1.3′

11h 58.3m

+28° 12′

4017

II 369

Com

12.7

1.8′ × 1.4′

11h 58.8m

+27° 27′

4080

III 355

Com

13.9

1.2′ × 0.5′

12h 04.9m

+27° 00′

2.6′ × 1.5′

12h

06.7m

+28° 10′

1.3′ × 0.7′

12h

08.8m

+29° 18′

1.1′ × 0.3′

12h

09.0m

+29° 15′

2.2′ × 0.9′

12h

09.2m

+29° 11′

12.3m

+29° 11′

4104
4131
4132
4134

II 370
III 356
III 357
II 371

Com
Com
Com
Com

12.2
13.3
14.0
13.1

4169

III 358

Com

12.3

1.8′ × 0.9′

12h

4173

II 372

Com

13.3

5.0′ × 0.7′

12h 12.3m

+29° 13′

4174

III 359

Com

13.6

0.8′ × 0.3′

12h 12.5m

+29° 09′

4175

III 360

Com

13.4

1.8′ × 0.4′

12h 12.5m

+29° 10′

2.6′ × 1.9′

12h

13.4m

+28° 31′

1.2′ × 0.9′

12h

14.5m

+28° 25′

Non-existent

12h

15.4m

+28° 28′

3.6′ × 1.5′

12h

18.1m

+28° 11′

19.9m

+27° 37′
+29° 17′

4185
4196
4209
4251

II 373
II 374
II 375
I 89

Com
Com
Com
Com

12.3
12.9
-
10.6

4275

II 376

Com

12.8

0.8′ × 0.7′

12h

4278

I 90 = II 322

Com

10.2

4.1′ × 3.8′

12h 20.1m

Angular sizes and separations are from recent catalogs. Visually, an object's size is often smaller
than the cataloged value and varies according to the aperture and magniﬁcation of the viewing
instrument. Right ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0.

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41
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Sky and Telescope - April 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - April 2015
