Seeing the Small with Microscopium
21 September 2025
French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille invented Microscopium in 1751–52 during his stay at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. It may be small and its handful of faint stars may not boast the dazzling brightness of other more famous constellations, but its contribution to the sky is inspired for the microscope was the scientific instrument that changed everything by revealing a hidden world of tiny organisms.
Indeed, it is impossible to imagine a world without microscopes – we would have no idea that cells, bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microscopic life forms exist, limiting our understanding of life itself. Treating diseases caused by bacteria and viruses would be impossible, we’d probably still be running on theories of a bad ether or miasma. (Without microscopes, who could ever imagine such monsters lived out of sight!) Our understanding of the way decay works would basically be that things disappear over time. And we would have no idea what a flea really looks like.
Lacaille depicted Microscopium as an early type of compound microscope, one that used more than one lens and was widely used in the 18th century. He first showed the constellation on his map of 1756 under the name le Microscope but Latinized this to Microscopium on the second edition published in 1763. He described it as consisting of ‘a tube above a square box’
Johann Bode added a slide carrier containing specimens when he depicted it in his Uranographia atlas of 1801.
Microscopium may be modest but it certainly is a good little constellation to explore for galaxies, albeit they are faint to very faint to exceedingly faint. It contains eleven NGC galaxies, one of which, NGC 7012, is the brightest galaxy in the core of ACO S921, and is surrounded by a number of smaller galaxies.
Observations
16″ f/5 Dobs at magnifications of 228x
10×50 binoculars
Lacaille 8760 – Red Dwarf Star
RA 21 17 15.3 Dec -38 52 02.5 Mag 6.7
This gorgeous little red dwarf star was one of the astounding 9,766 stars whose positions Lacaille measured using a very small 1/2-inch refractor (8x magnification). Albeit red dwarfs account for 80 percent of the galaxy’s stars, no red dwarf is visible to the unaided eye; Lacaille 8760, the brightest red dwarf in our sky, has an apparent magnitude of 6.69, fainter than the conventional naked-eye threshold of 6.0.
In 1979 astronomer Patrick Byrne (Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland) detected a small flare from the dwarf. As a result, Lacaille 8760 now bears a variable-star designation, AX Microscopii. However, Byrne observed Lacaille 8760 for 26 hours and detected only one flare, thus concluding concluded that its “flare activity may be unusually low when compared with that of other flare stars of similar type.”
In my 10×50 binoculars it is a lovely orangey-red star. (It lies 2.8° E of mag 5.3 Zeta Microscopii, a solitary, yellow-white star, spectral type F5V).
NGC 6919 – Galaxy
RA 20 31 38.0 Dec -44 12 59 Mag 13.0 Size 1.3’x1.0′ SB 13.6 PA 148°
Lying 30′ NW of Nu Microscopii, this galaxy appears as a faint, round glow, ~30″ in diameter and brightening very gradually to a slightly brighter centre.
NGC 6923 – Galaxy
RA 20 31 39.0 Dec -30 49 54 Mag 12.1 Size 1.6’x0.9′ SB 13.1 PA 78°
This galaxy appears fairly faint, small, elongated ~E-W, brightening gradually to a slightly brighter centre. A mag 12.5 star lies 1.2′ NW ffom the galaxy’s centre.
NGC 6925 – Galaxy
RA 20 34 20.5 Dec -31 58 51 Mag 11.9 Size 2.6’x1.3′ SB 13.1 PA 78°
I confess that I love edge on galaxies! And this one is lovely, appearing moderately bright, edge-on 4:1 SSW-NNE, ~2.5’x0.8′ in size, with a brighter core from which two long, thin arms extend. A mag 13 star lies 1.4′ from the galaxy’s centre at the north end.
NGC 6947 – Galaxy
RA 20 41 15.1 Dec -32 29 11 Mag 13.4 Size 1.1’x0.8′ SB 13.8 PA 51°
This galaxy appears fairly faint, fairly small, gradually brightening to a very small bright core. It lies at the edge of a small “V” asterism of 4 stars, with a mag 11 star 2.5′ WSW and a mag 10 star 2.8′ NW. Very pretty arrangement.
NGC 6958 – Galaxy
RA 20 48 42.6 Dec -37 59 50.8 Mag 11.4 Size 1.3’x1.1′ SB 12.7 PA 107°
This galaxy appears faint, small, round, brightening very slightly to the centre, ill-defined edges. A mag 12 star is just off the NW edge 1.3′ from the center and a mag 11 star is 2.8′ SW.
NGC 6983 – Galaxy
RA 20 56 43.4 Dec -43 59 09 Mag 13.3 Size 0.8’x0.7′ SB 12.4 PA 147°
This galaxy appears faint, round, ~30″ in diameter and brightening to a bright core that further brightens to the centre, the centre, ill-defined edges. A mag 12 star is just off the NW edge, 1.3′ from the center and a mag 11 star lies 2.8′ SW.98
NGC 6998 – Galaxy
RA 21 01 37.7 Dec -28 01 54 Mag 14.2 Size 0.5′ SB 13.5
I had to use averted vision to find this galaxy as it is extremely faint and very small; barely not-there at all. It forms a pair with NGC 6999 5.1′ ESE
NGC 6999 – Galaxy
RA 21 01 59.5 Dec -28 03 31 Mag 14.0 Size 0.7’x0.5′ SB 13.4 PA 175°
I had to use averted vision to find this galaxy as it is very faint, very small, round. It forms a very unusual averted vision pair with NGC 6998 5.1′ WNW
NGC 7012 – Galaxy
RA 21 06 45.5 Dec -44 48 52 Mag 12.7 Size 2.5’x1.4′ SB 14.0 PA 100°
NGC 7012 is the brightest galaxy in the core of ACO S921. It appears pretty faint, round, 40″ diameter and brightening to a small fairly bright core. A mag 12 star lies 1′ SW and a mag 15 star is 27″ SE of centre. Some smaller and fainter galaxies lie around NGC 7012. PGC 66118 lies 1.3′ SE of NGC 7012, a very faint, small, round glow , ~15″ diameter. ESO 286-048 lies 3.4′ NW, and appears as a very faint edge-on elongated SW-NE, ~0.8’x0.2′.
NGC 7057 – Galaxy
RA 21 24 58.7 Dec -42 27 37 Mag 12.6 Size 1.4’x1.0′ SB 12.8 PA 132°
NGC 7060 appears fairly faint, 30″x20″ elongated NW-SE, with a very faint and very small star just off its east edge.
NGC 7060 – Galaxy
RA 21 25 5 Dec -42 24 40 Mag 12.9 Size 1.7’x0.9′ SB 13.2 PA = 124°
NGC 7060 appears faint, round ~35″ in diameter with a slight brightening to the core. Two mag 14 stars lies 2′ N and 3′ NW.