I happened to view the Fourcade-Figueroa system on February 10, while on vacation in Western Australia (my 17th trip to the southern hemisphere). I was doing my 16 nights of dusk to dawn "starathon" with my 10-inch SkyWatcher Dobsonian in Wicherina, about 50 kms due east of Geraldton. The SQM-L was typically 21.5-21.9 and my NELM was 7.8 on the best of nights. Centaurus A was a naked eye object. This night was one of the worse, SQM-L only 21.5. I had not heard about Fourcade-Figueroa before but its large and elongated appearance, the location between Omega Centauri and Centaurus A and the strange name made me interested.
Using 50x - 150x magnification (employing a 8-24 mm Baader Hyperion zoom-eyepiece), I saw nothing first and I had to double-check the location in the Uranometria 2000.0 Atlas. After a while, I noticed a faint, elongated ESE-WNW glow ESE of a 11 mag star, which was the NE star of a rectangle of stars. The glow was indeed the core of the very flat Fourcade-Figueroa galaxy. The object was of a very low surface brightness but not difficult to view once it was located.
/Timo Karhula
Last edited by timokarhula; June 10th, 2016 at 09:41 AM.
Reply With Quote