Andrew Cooper
Oct 7, 2023    Kaʻohe, Mauna Kea, HI (map)
28cm f/10 SCT, NexStar 11" GyPSy @ 80x
Seeing: 6 Transparency: 7 Moon: 0%

Difficult as it hides in the glow of an 8th magnitude star, just visible as a 1' diameter glow located about 1' southeast of the star, brighter to the center with no other structure noted

Harold Corwin

This big, southern, late-type, spiral has a very patchy structure. In particular, the center of the galaxy has several knots and clumps of stars that might represent the nucleus. I've taken the eastern of these -- closest to the center of the "bulge" as seen on the DSS2IR image -- as the center of the galaxy itself. This, of course, may not be the nucleus (if there is one), but it is enough to find the galaxy on the sky. An earlier position that I found from an HST image was apparently compromised by a poor astrometric solution, or was a different clump of stars, so I've rejected it.

The bright star superposed on the northwestern side will interfere with not just visual observations, but not to the extent of the star on NGC 988 (which see).

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

Drawings, descriptions, and CCD photos are copyright Andrew Cooper unless otherwise noted, no usage without permission.

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