It is almost unbelievable that one just takes a look into the telescope and this can be seen. I was watching the light grey starless spot of the constellation of Fornax passing on the souther horizon many times longing for a better view. This constellation hosts perhaps the most beautiful galaxies in the sky. NGC 1365 is the first among them, the archetype of barred spiral galaxies. The conditions were not the best in Namibia either: Fornax didn't rise too high before dawn and the background was visibly greyish. It would be probably better in zenith.

The view is self-undestanding: the spiral structure can be seen at first sight. The lower arm is a little brighter, shows more contrast, and there is a thin thread running in it. Also, there are two bright spost in it besides the pronounced knot at the end of the bar.

A tiny spiral structure can be seen in the bright part of the core. I compared this with the photos only the day I processed the sketch into the final drawing (~2 years after drawing under the sky). To my surprise this structure was in the photos the way I drew it. It is caused by two dust lanes in the bar (with most contrast around the core). Besides the details that I have seen the galaxy has a lot more in store. Based on others' drawings and photos one can see more spiral arms and dust lanes in a little better sky with a little bigger telescope.

I drew the skeleton of the field from Guide into the sketch before drawing at night.

Comparison with the photograph

The photo on the left, courtesy of László Francsics was made using a 51 cm and a 70 cm Dall-Kirkham telescope remote controlled. To be more precise the RGB data were obtained using a Planewave 20" (0.51m) CDK, the luminance data were obtained using a Planewave 27" (0.7m) CDK700WF telescope. The original image has been rotated and cropped to get closer to the orientation of my drawing. At the time of writing (2015 October) László Francsics's photo has not yet been published elsewhere.

It is obvious that the drawing is pretty inaccurate (and part of the star field was pre-drawn). The shape of the galaxy and the main structures were clearly visible in the telescope. The galaxy would probably have revealed more of its beauty in a little greater altitude above the horizon and/or using a larger telescope.