NGC 1073

Historical observations

William Herschel (c.1784)

Synonyms:H III-455

Discovered in 1785 by William Herschel with an 18.7-inch f/13 speculum telescope. He called it "vF, vL, lbM, easily resolvable, 6' or 7' diameter."

Published comments

Burnham's Celestial Handbook

Burnham calls it a 12th mag spiral galaxy in Cetus, 4' x 4', "very faint, large, a little brighter in the middle. Spiral arms faint."

Photo index

Photo Index by Jim Lucyk: Sky&Tel. 1/65 p8, Sky&Tel. 1/88 p41, Astronomy mag. 10/84 p66, Deep Sky #13 Wi85 p34, Burnhams V1 p645, Hubble Atl.of Gal. (Sandage 1961) p49.

Sulentic & Tifft (1973)

The RNGC (Sulentic and Tifft 1973) notes that this is a 11.5 mag galaxy. Their coded description reads SB,BBARW/DIFRG VDIFKN OUTER SSTR.

Sandage & Tammann (1975)

Sandage, A. & Tammann, G. A. (1975) Steps toward the Hubble constant. V - The Hubble constant from nearby galaxies and the regularity of the local velocity field. ApJ, 196, 313-328. [1975ApJ...196..313S]

Sandage and Tammann (1975, Astrophysical Journal, 196, 313-328) includes this galaxy in the NGC 1068 Group. Members include NGC 936, NGC 1055, NGC 1068, NGC 1073, NGC 1084 & NGC 1087.

Sandage, A. (1961) The Hubble Atlas of Galaxies

This galaxy appears on page 49 of "The Hubble Atlas of Galaxies" by Allan Sandage (1961, Washington, DC).

Supernovae

A supernova erupted in this galaxy in 1962 (13.6b).

Modern observations

Walter Scott Houston

Houston notes that this 11th mag barred spiral is seen as a circular patch about 4' in diameter, forming a diamond-shaped pattern with three 9th mag stars to the southwest. Houston lists this as one of a clump of galaxies within a degree or two of Delta Ceti: the list is in order of increasing difficulty: NGC 1068, 1055, 1073, 1087 & NGC 1090.

Tom Lorenzin

Tom Lorenzin, in the electronic version of "1000+ The Amateur Astronomers' Field Guide to Deep Sky Observing", notes: "12M; 4' daimeter; face-on spiral; bright center; spiral arms not visible; see photo at HAG-49; about midway and E of a line connecting Gamma and Delta CET; SP GAL N1032 (13M; 1.5'x 0.5' extent) soft slash 1 degree to WSW."

Brian Skiff

POSS: ~7' NE of 4'.5 triangle incl SAO110709 (mv9.0, F0), others about 1/2 and 1 mag fntr. no obvious sup *s, but *ings.

30cm - vlosfcbr. found 5' NE of 5' triangle of m8.5 *s. 3'.5 diam, circ, w/1'.5 core. sev *s: one nr nuc, some S. uneven brtning.

Steve Gottlieb

02 43.7 +01 23 13 (9/3/83): fairly faint, large, even surface brightness, round. An equilateral triangle consisting of three mag 9.5-10.5 stars with sides 5' lies SW.

8 (11/28/81): very faint, fairly large, very diffuse, round. Three mag 10 stars are close SW.

Steve Coe

Steve Coe, using a 13" f/5.6, notes: "Very faint, pretty large, round, not brighter middle."

Paul Alsing

82-inch at McDonald - Observing Report

[amastro] posting, Sat Nov 25, 2006

82" telescope, McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas, USA

f/13.7, 35mm Televue Panoptic (5' fov, 812x)

Classic barred spiral, like a dimmer NGC 1365; strong bar, weaker arms that completely encircle the nucleus. In this outer circle there are several H-II knots visible.

Contemporary observations

Tom Bryant

2012 1 15 21:25:14

Observing site: Syria, Va

Telescope: C-11

[2h 43m 42s, 1° 23m 0s] A slight brightening of the night sky, seen only when slewing the telescope. 11.0mv seems too bright. B: SBc, 12.0mv. I suspect my corrector plate had iced up making the galaxy appear fainter than it is.