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The Sculptor's Feast In deepsky delights 4.5 primary and The Sculptor’s magnitude 11.5 feast in art companion. This white pair have a by Magda Streicher separation of 3.9″ [email protected] and position angle (PA) 243. There is a third companion The constellation Sculptor is situated of magnitude between Cetus to the north and Phoe- 9.3, also known nix to the south. It dates back to 1754 as h3216, with when the astronomer Nicolas Louis de a separation of Image source: www.stellarium.org Lacaille named 14 new constellations, 74.3″ and PA 297, the last of the 88 constellations recog- last measured in nized today. Originally called “L’Atelier 1956. du Sculpteur” (the sculptor’s workshop) in French. However, I like the German A mere three degrees SE of Delta Sculp- version; “Bildhauerwerkstatte”, it just toris is Blanco 1, discovered in 1949 by says it all. Victor Blanco – a very large, sparse, open cluster centred on magnitude 5 As is the case with most of the constel- Zeta Sculptoris. This area boasts a lations, it is difficult to see a sculptor in wealth of bright stars that can yield ex- this constellation’s star pattern. With a cellent observational results with binoc- bit of imagination it is just about possible ulars. Approximately 6° further south- to see the bowed head of a sculptor, pos- east is the magnitude 4.8 Eta Sculptoris, sibly busy creating a masterpiece. What very conveniently located in the central certainly is true though is that Sculptor, area of the Sculptor constellation. Open ranking thirty-sixth in size, contains star clusters in the constellation are some masterpiece objects. Let us now somewhat scarce, requiring me to fall follow the route of the chisel through the back on my list of asterisms. Streicher constellation, which appears faint but 90, a perfect zigzag grouping, can be shows off its objects with pride. found about 2° south of Eta Sculptoris. Six faint magnitude 11 stars are evenly The western part of the constellation is spaced in a NW-SE direction in perfect characterised by magnitude 4.4 Gamma symmetry over almost 12′ – but a few (west), magnitude 4.3 Beta (south) and stars to the north spoil this shape to some magnitude 4.5 Delta (north), approxi- extent. The far south-eastern, magnitude mately 6 to 7 degrees apart. Delta Sculp- 10.5 star, GSC 6997 366 in this grouping toris is a double star with a magnitude displays a very red colour. 218 mnassa vol 67 nos 11 & 12 219 december 2008 the sculptor’s feast in art Skymap produced using Cartes du Ciel The Sculptor constellation harbours a as a result of a direct collision with a huge number of galaxies like the Cart- satellite galaxy, causing the blue ring of wheel Ring Galaxy (ESO 350-G40) infant stars. with a special appearance and a distance of around 500 000 light years. It is situ- One of the most interesting galaxies is ated 2.5° south-east of Eta Sculptoris. found on the border between Sculptor Under the ideal conditions of a dark and Phoenix. NGC 55 is a splendid Bushveld sky, I made a desperate at- object with a lot of character. This tempt to glimpse this rare object with edge-on galaxy is very elongated in my 12-inch telescope. The only way an ENE to WNW direction (at 95x out was to sketch the complete star-field. magnification). The core is bright and The galaxy could barely be seen with outstanding but seems off-centre to the averted vision as a very faint, extremely west, north-western thicker part of the small out-of-focus point of light. A galaxy. A few faint stars can be seen mere 6′ north is a magnitude 13 double on the hazy surface. NGC 55 shows star which most conveniently points the some structure two-thirds of the way way, making this task slightly easier. down the south-eastern part, where the Comparison with star-maps afterwards galaxy tapers down and appears slightly showed that I was dead on target. Just broken off, surrounded by nebulosity. like that perfect image chiselled out by This broken part is also host to a small, the sculptor, so distinctive is this special hazy patch which has been catalogued object which, as photographs show, as IC 1537 (280x). The galaxy gave me forms an open wheel with a bright hub the impression of the space shuttle with or core, that it truly justifies its name. a plume of smoke just off its main body. The galaxy probably came into being James Dunlop was fortunate enough to 220 mnassa vol 67 nos 11 & 12 221 december 2008 deepsky delights be the discoverer of this galaxy, which of magnitude 5.5 Sigma Sculptoris. It he recorded as a beautiful long nebula. was discovered by Harlow Shapley on a I sometimes wonder what ancient secret photograph taken in 1937 with the 24- this exceptional galaxy harbours, almost inch Bruce Refractor in South Africa. like a sculptor, slowly and leisurely At a distance of 300 000 light-years it creating a work of art, forming it into a is possible to study the proper motion unique shape with so much character. of this system, which is centred at RA: 01h00m09s DEC:-33°42′33″, less than Approximately 7° east of NGC 55 5° north of NGC 300. is the open spiral galaxy NGC 300, also known as the Southern Pinwheel At its highest point in the sky at this time galaxy. This galaxy displays a large, of the year, Caroline Herschel’s most fa- faint, round to slightly oval smudge of mous and blessed southern galaxy can light in a northwest-southeast direction, be seen just 25′ from the border with growing very gradually brighter towards Cetus. Caroline discovered NGC 253 in its relatively small nu- cleus. Faint stars can be glimpsed embedded on the surface of the galaxy. Our deep-sky director, Auke Slotegraaf, saw this galaxy as a small cloud in his 11x80 binoculars, where a magnitude 9.5 star immersed on its south-western border. About 2.5° south-west of the galaxy, Lambda 1 and 2 form a lovely pair with a white magnitude Lucas Ferreira photographed NGC 253 with his 8-inch 6 primary and a yellow Sky-Watcher Newtonian and Pentax K110D SLR Camera magnitude 5.9 com- working at ISO 1600, by stacking forty 30 sec exposures panion star. The faint using DeepskyStacker. He writes: “WOW... was my first re- Sculptor dwarf galaxy, action when I saw this galaxy in my 25mm Plossl Eyepiece! also known as PGC It was huge and bright, it almost stretched right across my eyepiece. I certainly did not expect to see its dust lane, but 3589, (the first dwarf to there it was! It was indescribably delicate in my telescope be discovered in our lo- and reminded me of the great galaxy in Andromeda, just cal group of galaxies), is so much better positioned to observe from the southern situated around 2° south hemisphere.” 220 mnassa vol 67 nos 11 & 12 221 december 2008 the sculptor’s feast in art 1783 while searching for comets. Only although it could also have the appear- a truly dedicated observer would search ance of a dense, very distant faint open the dregs of the atmosphere so near to cluster. With higher power it appears as the horizon as NGC 253 would have ap- a bright ball of glittering lights, splash- peared from her home in England. NGC ing out in a haze. The uneven core is not 253 is situated only 50′ from the Cetus very dense, but it stands out fairly well. border and around 4.5° NNW of the Brighter stars dot the outer edge of this magnitude 4.3 sparkling blue/white Al- globular, which shows off beautifully pha Sculptoris. NGC 253 is a showpiece against the background star-field. This galaxy, very bright and almost edge-on globular is around 30 000 light-years in a southwest-northeast direction, with away and looks like a distant comet in a slightly brighter oval nucleus. The small telescopes. Sculptor’s claim to surface displays a complex structure of fame is that the southern galactic pole uneven, clumpy gas clouds, dark dust is less than one degree southwest of this lanes and knots with a handful of stars lovely globular. embedded within (218x). Around the outer edge the galaxy seems flimsy and Close to the eastern edge of the Sculp- woolly and I could almost see it hanging tor constellation and 5 degrees west of three-dimensionally in a truly dark night the Fornax constellation, the amateur sky. Slotegraaf observed the “Silver Bruno Alessi came across a lovely Coin” with 11x80 binoculars, which closed arrowhead star grouping, showed an unevenly bright ray of light wedged between stars. This almost edge-on spiral galaxy is one of the near- est galaxies beyond our local neighbour- hood. Deep-sky objects like these might well have transported Michelangelo and Da Vinci to another level in their art, if they had had the privilege of living in the modern era. Just a thought – don’t you think we are blessed? Make it a real and deliberate challenge and a guaran- teed sweet reward awaits you. Globular clusters are very popular among observers. NGC 288 is no ex- The Alessi J01232-3330 “Arrowhead” ception, situated only 1.7° south-east, asterism sketched using my 12-inch neighbouring NGC 253. It displays a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. North soft, busy glow with faint resolved stars, is up and east to the left.
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