The galaxy pair NGC 5257-58 is the northernmost object I have drawn from Namibia. They are located just above the equator so they are basically northern objects. I have already seen them from Ágasvár, Hungary with another 16" telescope but I had the feeling that a little bit was missing. I decided to take a look at them in perfect Namibian conditions and they did not disappoint. The subtle details emerged and I didn't need to watch them for hours to finally not really see the definite structure.

Based on the catalogs both are 12.1^m bright and they are indeed bright in the telescope. Both galaxies have a faint small but non-stellar nucleus. NGC 5258 (top left on my drawing) has a pronounced bar with multiple bright spots in it. The spiral arms of NGC 5257 (bottom right on my drawing) form a ring structure. This shows some details as well: brighter spots and a somewhat higher contrast outer edge.

The interacting pair made it into the famous catalog of Halton C. Arp under the entry 240. I could not see the bridge connecting the two galaxies but both ends - basically the spiral arms of the individual galaxies - were visible.

Comparison with the photograph

You can see the Hubble (Hubble Space Telescope, HST) photo of NGC 5257-58 to the left along with my inverted drawing. I rotated and cropped my drawing but it doesn't cover the full field of the photo so I filled the bottom right corner with black.

The full beauty of this interacting system visible in the Hubble photo cannot be seen live in the eyepiece but the view is magnificent as it is.