NGC 1. See NGC 7839. ===== NGC 2. See NGC 7839. ===== NGC 3. See NGC 4. ===== NGC 4. This really is the very faint galaxy about an arcminute south of Marth's position. He was observing with a 48-inch reflector, the second largest telescope in the world at the time, so he really could see very faint galaxies like this. LEDA took NPM1G +07.0004 as NGC 4. This is brighter, yes, but it is nearly 21 arcmin away from Marth's position, and by funny numbers in both RA and Dec (52 seconds of time, and 16.5 arcmin). Also, Marth's relative position from NGC 3 pins this down. He found both on the same night in November of 1864, so the telescope was zeroed the same for both galaxies. Marth's offset from NGC 3 to NGC 4 is just 10 seconds in RA and 5 arcmin in Dec. The offsets from modern positions are 7.6 seconds in RA and 4 arcmin 20 arcsec in Dec. This is well within the errors of Marth's usual accuracy, so the identification is secure. ===== NGC 6 = NGC 20. On the night of 20 September 1885, Lewis Swift found six objects. Four of these (NGC 19, NGC 21, NGC 7831, and NGC 7836; see the notes for these, too) have mean offsets in their positions as published by Swift, from the correct positions, of -1m 10s in RA and -8m 08s in Dec. A fifth found later in the night, NGC 801, has offsets of +19s and +0.9m; Swift clearly "re-zeroed" his telescope in the interim. The sixth object, NGC 6, shares the right ascension offsets of the first four, but its declination is about 45 arcmin too large. It's identity with NGC 20 is secured by Swift's note "... one of 5 sts which point to it is pretty near." The unmistakeable line of five stars stretches about 2 arcmin to the east; Swift's "pretty near" star is about 15 arcsec east of the galaxy. ===== NGC 8 is a double star about 3 arcmin northwest of NGC 9. Both objects were found by Otto Sturve in September 1865, NGC 9 on the 27th, and NGC 8 on the 29th. Struve's relative positions for the two are good, though his absolute positions are -12 sec and -2 arcmin off. His measurement of the 10th mag star about 6 arcmin east-southeast of NGC 9, however, clearly identifies the two objects he saw. ===== NGC 9 is a peculiar spiral with a bright blue knot on its southern arm, found by Otto Struve. Though Struve's position is about 3 arcmin off, his measurement of the star 6 arcmin east of the galaxy insures the identification. See NGC 8 for more. ===== NGC 14. See NGC 7555. ===== NGC 17 = NGC 34. This galaxy is clearly identified by its discovers' (Muller and Swift) descriptions of nearby stars, in particular the double star two arcmin west-northwest. Along with many other of the Leander McCormick nebulae, its approximate position is about 2 minutes of time too far east. Herbert Howe was the first to suggest the identity, again based on the clear descriptions of the double star, which he observed just where Muller and Swift claimed it to be. ===== NGC 18 is a double star 4 arcmin east of NGC 16. It was found by Herman Schultz whose micrometric position, measured on two nights, is within 3 arcsec of the GSC position. Dreyer notes that N18 was not seen by either d'Arrest or by Lord Rosse. ===== NGC 19. As with NGC 6 (which see), NGC 19 is unambiguously identified by Swift's note about the surrounding star field: "... in center of 3 very faint stars forming an equilateral triangle, two of them double." The double stars are northwest and southwest of the galaxy, with the third star being east- southeast. Swift's position for the galaxy also shares the systematic offset of NGC 21, NGC 7831, and NGC 7836 from the true position. Concidentally, Swift's position for NGC 21 (which see) is near NGC 19 which has led some to mistakenly call the latter galaxy NGC 21. ===== NGC 20 is also = NGC 6 (which see). NGC 20's original NGC position is correct. ===== NGC 21 = NGC 29. Though Swift makes no comment about the surrounding star field, the identity of his object with Herschel's is clinched by the offset of his (Swift's) position from the true position: NGC 19, 7831, and 7836 share the same offset (see NGC 6 for more information). The NGC position for NGC 29 is correct. ===== NGC 28 and NGC 31. Found by John Herschel during his stay at Cape Town in the mid-1830's, the identifications of these two galaxies are unequivocal. This has not prevented PGC from equivocating: it claims that the SGC identifications are wrong. Balderdash and bull feathers! Unfortunately, ESO missed the galaxies (and NGC 37 as well), so that N28 is not even in ESO. ESO 149-G020 is NGC 31, and ESO 149-G022 is NGC 37. All this is probably why the PGC folks were misled. The PGC error also crept over into RC3; the galaxy identified there as NGC 28 is actually NGC 31. ===== NGC 29. See NGC 21. ===== NGC 30 is a double star. This was recorded only once by Marth in late 1864 as a "nebulous star 13th magnitude." There are no galaxies within 10 arcmin of Marth's position, but the double star is within an arcmin. On a night of less than perfect seeing, it would probably appear as Marth described it. ===== NGC 31. See NGC 28. ===== NGC 32 is apparently the northeastern of a pair of stars separated by about 30 arcsec. It was found by Julius Schmidt on 10 Oct 1861, probably from Athens (where Schmidt had become director of the observatory 3 years earlier) with a 6.2-inch Ploessl refractor. He made a micrometric measurement of it, and provided a generic description, "A faint nebula." Auwers lists this as the first object in his appendix of nebulae discovered since the Herschels. Schmidt's position is within 3 arcsec of the star, so it is almost certainly the object he saw. ===== NGC 33 is a double star. The comment for NGC 30 fits this perfectly, too. The only difference is Marth's description: "eF, vS; or nebulous star." ===== NGC 34 = NGC 17, which see. ===== NGC 37. See NGC 28. ===== NGC 44 is a double star found by John Herschel. He describes it as "eF, vS; not to be seen but in the clearest night." There is a very faint galaxy 8.4 arcmin south of Herschel's position, but the double is within 15 arcsec and fits his description. ===== NGC 46 is a single star. Included as a nebula in the Markree Catalogue, it was reobserved twice in its catalogued place by Auwers who notes it as "... a completely sharp nebulous star 11th magnitude (9 arcmin north and 1 min 29 sec preceding a star 7.8 mag)." The 7.8 mag star is SAO 109091 which is exactly where Auwers says it is with respect to NGC 46. This positively identifies N46 as the star, as does the Markree position which is within 4 arcsec of the GSC position. ===== NGC 47 = NGC 58, which see. ===== NGC 50. See NGC 58. ===== NGC 54. See NGC 58. ===== NGC 55. See IC 1537. ===== NGC 56 does not exist. John Herschel recorded it only once very early in his observing career (Sweep 14 in 1825), saying, "About this place a considerable space seems affected with nebulosity." There is a possibility that he saw a reflection of the bright star 2 degrees north, but there is no other reasonable explanation for the observation. The other objects that he recorded in Sweep 14 (including M15) are all in the same area of the sky, so there is no gross error in the position. ===== NGC 58 = NGC 47. The brightest (N50) of the three nebulae (N47 and N54 are the others) in this group was found in 1866 by Brother Ferrari. It is one of only two in his short list, published in a note in AN 1571 by Father Secchi, which has a fairly accurate position. See NGC 7667 for more information about Father Secchi's note. Sometime later, Tempel went over the field and found Ferrari's nebula as well as a second nearby, N47. Though Dreyer credits Tempel with observing both objects, there is no record of either in any of Tempel's 10 published notes. So, he must have "announced" them in a letter to Dreyer. His position for N47 is good. Finally, on 21 October 1886, Lewis Swift saw all three nebulae. Since Father Secchi's position for the brightest is not exactly on the galaxy, and having no way to know of Tempel's observation, Swift included the three as new in his sixth list. Curiously, Dreyer credits only Secchi for N50, though he lists Swift as having observed the other two. Though Swift calls N58 the "3rd of 3," it is actually west of the other two. Swift's RA is in error by about 1 minute of time. This was noticed first by Herbert Howe who could not find N58, and suggested that Tempel's object, N47, is also the object seen by Swift. This, of course, makes it the "1st of 3," and suggests that Swift added the comments based on the positions in his list, rather than on his actual observations. ===== NGC 61 is the brighter, southern component of a double galaxy found by WH. His description, "irregular figure," suggests that he might have glimpsed the fainter component to the north, too. The MCG position (copied into RNGC) is incorrect, ESGC (in RC3) is correct. ===== NGC 67 is the westernmost and faintest of at least seven nebulae found by LdR in what we now call the NGC 68 group. His fine sketch, published in his 1861 monograph, clearly shows that the object that most of us have been calling NGC 67A is, in fact, the object LdR sketched as one of the nebulae. The object we've been calling NGC 67 is shown on LdR's sketch as a star. So, I've reassigned NGC 67 to the correct galaxy to properly reflect the history. The other NGC objects in the group (N68, 69, 70, 71, 72, and 74) are brighter and have been correctly identified in the major catalogues. ===== NGC 68 is the brightest galaxy in a compact group. WH listed one of his fifth class ("large") nebulae here, so I think it likely that he saw the merged light of at least NGC 68, 70, and 71, the three brightest in the group. Several of the stars in the vicinity probably also added to the "object" that WH catalogued. LdR picked out seven of the nebulae here, and suspected at least two others. His sketch shows the seven, along with several stars, two of which turn out to be galaxies. See NGC 67, IC 1538, and IC 1539 for more on this group. ===== NGC 69. See NGC 67. ===== NGC 70 = IC 1539, which see. Also see NGC 67 and 68. ===== NGC 71. See NGC 67 and NGC 68. ===== NGC 72. See NGC 67. ===== NGC 74. See NGC 67. ===== NGC 81. Even though Bigourdan mistook the star northwest of the galaxy as NGC 81, Copeland's offsets from NGC 83 are very good and point unambiguously at the galaxy as the correct object. ===== NGC 82. Bigourdan's offsets just as unambiguously point to a star in this case as in his mistaken observation of a star for NGC 81. ===== NGC 83. See NGC 81. ===== NGC 84. As with Bigourdan's measurements of NGC 81 and 82, this, too, is a star, nailed exactly by those measurements. ===== NGC 85. I admit to caving in to the inevitable on this one. There is no problem with the NGC identification -- Copeland's offsets from NGC 83 are accurate, and just as accurately pin down the galaxy he measured. Similarly, Javelle's offsets from SAO 073902 are good and pin down IC 1546. The "A" and "B" suffixes for NGC 85 come from MCG, and confuse the simplicity of the history. I was tempted to ignore the suffixes altogether, but they have already been copied into the literature. So, I have to note that "N85B" is the same as IC 1546. ===== NGC 90, 91, and NGC 93. Dreyer has confused the observations of these objects. Lord Rosse's observations make it clear that he and his assistants saw only two nebulous objects here, so one of the "Ld R"'s has to be striken from the "Other Observers" column of the NGC. The offsets make it clear that the Irish observers saw what we now call NGC 90 and NGC 93. What do the observations of Schultz and d'Arrest have to say? Schultz's positions for all three objects -- not just one as the NGC credits -- precessed from the published equinox of 1865.0, agree to within two or three arcsec in all three cases with modern data from GSC. These pin down the three objects and show that NGC 91 is a star (Bigourdan also called the same star NGC 91 in his Observations). D'Arrest's positions are not quite as good, but fall within 20 arcsec of the galaxies. His descriptions of the locations and magnitudes of the nearby stars are also good, and confirm the identifications. So, NGC 90 should be credited to Lord Rosse, Schultz, and d'Arrest (rather than just Lord Rosse and Schultz), NGC 91 to Schultz alone (Lord Rosse and d'Arrest never commented on this star), and NGC 93 again to all three observers. To the description for NGC 90 should be added "* 13 sp." There are several other identification problems in the NGC 80/83 Group, too. See NGC 81, 82, and 84, as well as IC 1547. ===== NGC 91. See NGC 90. ===== NGC 93. See NGC 90. ===== NGC 110. Is this a true cluster, or just a part of the northern Milky Way that is randomly richer? JH found the grouping in late October 1831, and described it as "A very loose, pretty rich cluster; stars 9th to 12th magnitude; 9th magnitude star in the middle taken." Assuming that JH's position is correctly reduced and printed, the 9th magnitude star is GSC 4303-1643 at 00 24 29.38, +71 06 51.1 (I've adopted this position -- rounded off -- as the position of the cluster). Looking at the object on the POSS1 does not show much beyond a group of 50-60 stars scattered over an area about 20 arcmin across. Had this not been included in the Alter-Ruprecht catalogue, I suspect that it would have been one of the RNGC's "nonexistent" clusters. There is the possibility of a mistake in JH's single position, but I don't see any other grouping in the area that would fit his description as well. I think this is a candidate for visual observation. Note added in October 2003. Bob Erdmann and I examined the cluster a couple of weeks ago under good skies in Prescott, AZ with 8-inch and 16-inch telescopes. JH's description from the eyepiece is more appropriate than mine from the POSS. The "cluster" is just a bit more than a random scattering of 15-20 stars from the 9th to the 12th magnitudes in an area about 20 arcmin across. It doesn't stand out very well from the field, but we can still see why JH recorded it. ===== NGC 111. I cannot see anything within 5 degrees of Leavenworth's position that agrees with his description of a "vF, vS, R, lbM; * 8.5 p 36 sec, n 2 arcmin. RA doubtful." There is a very faint, peculiar pair of galaxies (MCG -01-02-013) at the approximate offsets he gives -- but the star is 10th or 11th magnitude, and his description of the galaxy does not match the relatively low surface brightness twisted streamers that contribute most of the light of the pair. There is no sketch included in Stone's papers at the University of Virginia. The galaxy may not be irretrieveably lost, however. Since the declinations in the first two Leander McCormick lists are generally (though not always!) reliable to within a couple of arcminutes, it may be possible to scan around the sky at Leavenworth's declination to find the object (see e.g. NGC 331). I haven't tried yet, however. ===== NGC 116 is the last of fourteen new nebulae found by Brother Ferrari at the College Romain during the winter of 1865-1866. They were announced by Father Secchi, and Dreyer incorrectly credits him with their discovery. See NGC 7667 for more information about Father Secchi, Brother Ferrari, and their nebulae. This particular nebula is unusual in the list in having a candidate galaxy nearby (about 15 arcmin north of the nominal position), MCG -01-02-017. There is another galaxy about eight arcmin southeast (MCG -01-02-018), closer to the nominal position, but fainter. Most of us take the brighter, northwestern galaxy, but given the poor position, even that is unsure. ===== NGC 120 is correctly described as being about 10 arcmin north of the comparison star in Tempel's original paper. However, as noted first by Bigourdan, the NGC position is about 5 arcmin off. This is apparently one of the positions that Tempel sent to Dreyer as a private communication since only the description is published. See NGC 122 and NGC 123 for a bit more. ===== NGC 122 and NGC 123 are probably stars. Tempel published only the sparce descriptions; the NGC positions are apparently among those that he sent directly to Dreyer. There is certainly nothing at these positions except a faint star in the case of NGC 122 (which Bigourdan measured). Ironically, I think that this star may be the northeast of Tempel's "nebulae," so that it would be NGC 123 and not NGC 122. NGC 122 may be the equally faint star about an arcminute southwest of Bigourdan's star. See NGC 123 for more. ===== NGC 123 is probably one of two 15th magnitude stars, both in GSC, near Tempel's positions (see NGC 122 for more on this) in roughly the correct relative positions. Since there are no nebulae anywhere in the area, I've tentatively identified these two stars with the objects he described. A brighter galaxy, NGC 120 (which see) is further on to the northwest, again in the correct relative position which Tempel described in his paper. Bigourdan measured this star, but gave it the number NGC 122; there is nothing at all at his one measured place for NGC 123. ===== NGC 135 = IC 26. There is no doubt about the identity of IC 26 -- Javelle's position agrees to within 2 arcsec of that measured on the DSS. The problem comes from Leavenworth's position for NGC 135. Like many of the positions in the two lists of new nebulae from Leander McCormick Observatory, that one is over a minute of time off in RA, though much closer in declination (less than 2 arcmin off). Herbert Howe went after the object around the turn of the century (19th to 20th) and said simply, "The position is 00h 26m 43s, -13d 53.3m [1900.0]." This agrees exactly with the position for IC 26. Leavenworth has left us a sketch that verifies Howe's object, so the identity is secure. It's interesting to note, too, that the cover sheet for the sketch has the RA given to a tenth of a minute (00h 24.8m), while the RA in the published paper is rounded off to 00h 25m. I won't even speculate on why this was done. ===== NGC 151 = NGC 153, which see. ===== NGC 153 = NGC 151. Swift found four nebulae on the night of 9 August 1886 (N163, N217, and N7774 as well as N153) -- all have RA's in his list that are 10 - 15 seconds of time too large, though his declinations are pretty good. As it happens, all but N7774 had been previously seen. Dreyer caught the identities for two of the nebulae (N163 and N217), but not for N153. So, the galaxy now has two NGC numbers. N153 is sometimes taken to be the star just northeast of the galaxy. But this can't be because Swift mentions that star in his description of the galaxy. ===== NGC 156 is probably the northern of the pair of stars, northwest of NGC 157, that Wolfgang and I have pointed to in the past. Tempel has mistaken several other single stars near galaxies as nebulous (see e.g. NGC 4315, NGC 4322, NGC 4768/9), and this is probably another. We can't tell for sure, though, as he has not measured this micrometrically, and his description is scanty: "Very small". The NGC tells us all that Tempel did in his brief note. ===== NGC 157. See NGC 7667 where this galaxy -- N157 -- figures in the Father Secchi mysteries. ===== NGC 158. Though this is 4 arcmin from the NGC position, this close double star is probably Tempel's object. It is northeast of NGC 157, and could probably be seen on a night of less-than-perfect seeing as nebulous. I'm a bit more confident of this one than I am of NGC 156, which see. ===== NGC 160 is not NGC 162, which see. ===== NGC 162 is a star about 75 arcsec northeast of NGC 160. It was initially found and measured by Schultz at Uppsala (he calls it "G.C. 80" in his tables and notes), though Lord Rosse also noted it at least twice. In addition, the star was thought to be nebulous on Heidelberg and Lick plates, though the Mt. Wilson astronomers -- not finding a nebula at the place -- hypothesized that N162 = N160. The small galaxy 2.7 arcminutes southeast of N160 has also been mistaken for NGC 162, once by yrs trly. Live and learn. Also see Dreyer's NGC note for N160. He had this all figured out in 1888. ===== NGC 163. See NGC 153. ===== NGC 171 = NGC 175. Dreyer (1912, WH's collected papers) tells us that CH made a 1 degree error while reducing the position of III 223. There is certainly nothing in the place given in NGC, though the identity with III 223 carries two question marks. Auwers has the correct declination in his published reduction of WH's observations. The spare number comes from GC. Unfortunately, JH has no note there telling us why he put the number in. However, in CGH, he notes the 1 degree difference in the polar distances between III 223 and h2334 (N175) while again putting a question mark on the number from his father's catalogue. Enough doubt apparently remained in his mind about the identity that he put two entries into GC, both of which Dreyer copied into the NGC. Dreyer checked back into WH's manuscripts while working on the Collected Papers, and found CH's error. ===== NGC 175 = NGC 171, which see. ===== NGC 178 = IC 39. The IC identity is not in doubt. Javelle's micrometric measurement reduces to within a few arcsec of the modern position. The NGC number, though, comes from one of Ormond Stone's Leander McCormick discoveries with its typically bad RA. Stone's declination is fortunately close, and his description "F, S, mE 0 deg, bM, faint wing sp" fits the galaxy perfectly. The "faint wing" is, in fact, one of the arms of this object. I wonder if this is a superposition of two galaxies, or an interacting system. Stone has left a sketch of his nebula -- my rather poor copy of it shows the "wing" faintly. Unfortunately, the sketch shows only the galaxy; no nearby stars are included, so the identity is not quite pinned down. At least the galaxy itself is oriented along the north-south axis of the sketch with the "wing" apparently stretching off towards the southwest. Herbert Howe found the galaxy 1min 37sec following Stone's position, so the corrected position made it into the IC2 Notes. Unfortunately, Dreyer did not notice that the object is the same as IC 39, so the identity of the two numbers was not published until one of the Helwan observers noticed it. ===== NGC 203 = NGC 211, which see. ===== NGC 211 = NGC 203. Stephan misidentified his comparison star as BD +2 92; his star is actually GSC 0014-1250, not in BD. Within his mean errors, Stephan's offsets, applied to the correct star, point exactly to NGC 203. This was later picked up by Copeland with LdR's 72-inch, and was correctly positioned by him. A star that I had earlier pegged as the possible object that Stephan saw is about 0.5 arcmin south-southeast of Stephan's incorrect position used in NGC. Though I've not reduced Bigourdan's two measurements of "NGC 211," I suspect they refer to this same star. ===== NGC 213. See IC 1572. ===== NGC 217. See NGC 153. ===== NGC 219. See IC 44. ===== NGC 223 = IC 44, which see. ===== NGC 250. Swift's position is over 4 arcmin to the east of the galaxy. But his description of the galaxy, "eF, vS, R; in center of 3 sts in form of a right triangle" is exact and points us to the correct object. ===== NGC 252, NGC 258, and NGC 260. Lord Rosse described this field differently on different nights. On 22 Dec 1848, the three objects appeared to be in a line; on 23 Oct 1856, they formed a triangle. He has two sketches, one showing the line, the second the triangle. Since the second has no field stars shown, it's difficult to determine the orientation. My guess, however, is that the third "nebula" shown there is a faint star about 2 arcmin south of the NGC position of N258. On the sky, the three objects are in a line. This is the orientation that Dreyer adopted, and the NGC positions are relatively accurate. ===== NGC 258. See NGC 252. ===== NGC 260. See NGC 252. ===== NGC 276 = IC 1591. There is no doubt about which galaxy the IC number belongs to -- Stewart has it well-placed and perfectly described from a Harvard plate. N276, however, is one of the Leander-McCormick nebulae first found by Muller, and published with a very poor position. Muller's description, however, is as detailed and as accurate as Stewart's. Herbert Howe found the galaxy 1 minute 13 seconds following Muller's position with the bright star north-northeast just as Muller had it. Unfortunately, Dreyer did not catch the connection to IC 1591 when he wrote the IC2 note, so the object now has two numbers. ===== NGC 281 = IC 11, which see. Also see IC 1590. ===== NGC 295 is lost. This object was found by Copeland with LdR's 72-inch reflector while he was examining what he thought was NGC 296. His description of the field is precise: "[NGC 296] F, R, *10m (yellow) Pos 29.6 deg, Dist 123.1 arcsec. Nova [NGC 295], S, R, and with a * or another neb 10 arcsec n. Pos from [296] 242.0 deg, Dist 314.6 arcsec or 21.6 seconds p, 147.6 arcsec s." Unfortunately, this configuration of objects is nowhere to be found near NGC 296 (which see for more). I've searched the POSS1 +30 deg 00h 52m field, but could find no galaxies with neighboring stars as Copeland describes. Perhaps a search of the adjacent fields would turn up something. ===== NGC 296. WH's position is about 20 seconds too large and an arcmin too far north. That alone would not have caused people to miss the identification with the brightest galaxy in a group of five. What caused the problem was NGC 295 (which see). Copeland misidentified the field with N296, found a second object near it, and Dreyer put that into NGC as N295. Unfortunately, with WH's position being off, the nominal position of N295 is very close to the actual position for N296. Hence, the confusion. The description in NGC is an "average" of WH's and Copeland's for the galaxy he thought was N296. WH's original description "F, E, preceding a B star", is closer, but the GC description (apparently taken from one of his father's observing logs by JH) is even better: "F, E, a B* f, vnr." Just about everyone has the wrong identification for this, but the correct one is not in doubt. Malcolm found this one, too. Good catch! ===== NGC 297 is an extremely faint companion to NGC 298. Both were found by Albert Marth with Lassell's 48-inch reflector during one of their Malta stays. When I first went over the field for ESGC, I found it hard to believe that such a faint galaxy could be seen visually. However, more experience in looking at some of the other objects Marth found has convinced me that he could indeed have picked this one up, especially since the brighter galaxy would have already caught his attention. In earlier versions of the position table, I suggested that N297 might be the double star at 00 52 29.6, -07 37 50 (B1950; HCo), but that is unlikely as the relative position of the two galaxies as given by Marth is very good. The double is almost straight south of N298, putting it about an arcmin off Marth's relative offset from N298. ===== NGC 298. See NGC 297. ===== NGC 301. See NGC 302. ===== NGC 302 is a probably the star 1.8 arcmin east-northeast of NGC 301. The pair was found by Frank Muller, and has a typically poor RA in the first list of nebulae from Leander McCormick. The declinations, though, seem to be close. Though there is no sketch, the objects can be tentatively identified by Muller's comment "* 8 p 30 seconds" in the description of NGC 301. There are, in fact, two stars of about 8th magnitude roughly 30 seconds preceding the galaxy. The northern star is slightly closer than 30 seconds, the southern is slightly further. It's possible that neither is the correct star, but this is the only configuration in the area that fits Muller's note. In any event, there is no object at his given offset from the galaxy (his note reads "Neb? f ([No.] 18 [in the first list = N301]), P 75 deg, dist 1.0 [arcmin]." The actual distance is 1.8 arcmin, though the position angle is about right. Unfortunately, 20th century versions of my position lists pointed to the wrong object as N302 (the faint star or compact galaxy 0.3 southeast of N301). The first 21st century version finally got the right star -- assuming, of course, that it is the object Muller saw. ===== NGC 305 is a small asterism of six or eight stars at JH's discovery position; his description, "A small cluster of p closely scattered stars" confirms the identification. RNGC incorrectly placed the NGC number on a nearby CGCG galaxy. Unfortunately, PGC followed RNGC, so this number crept into RC3 as well. Sigh. The position depends a bit on exactly which stars are taken as members of the asterism. Tom DeMary includes a few more than caught my eye at first, so his position is about an arcminute different. But the identification as an asterism is not in doubt. ===== NGC 307. See NGC 308. ===== NGC 308 and NGC 310 are both stars. [All this is from a letter to Malcolm Thomson; it's all a bit wordy, but I've saved it like this since it has a few details in it about my pre-DSS working methods.] Since Lord Rosse measured the positions of NGC 308 and 310 in relation to NGC 307, I decided to do the same. Using a comparator with a millimeter scale and an "angle fan" scale, I measured the distances and position angles of objects surrounding NGC 307 on the Palomar Sky Survey print. Since the scale of the paper prints is different in the x and y directions by about 0.9%, the measurements are liable to be a bit off from what would be measured on a glass plate. Estimating the center of NGC 307 was also a problem, and the resulting errors probably swamped the print scale problem. Nevertheless, the measurements are adequate to unambiguously identify the objects in question. So, here is a table of the objects identified and measured by Lord Rosse and myself. I've also included [Malcolm Thomson's] measurement of the galaxy that the RNGC calls NGC 310. Object Observer PA Dist Date Notes (deg) (arcsec) GC 5126 Ld. R. 147 60 31 Dec 1866 Measure obviously approximate = N308 Ld. R. 149.7 52 23 Oct 1876 Mean of two measures = star HC 150+- 52 14 Jul 1989 PA approx GC 5128 Ld. R. 81 225 31 Dec 1866 "Another neb. susp. near." = N310 Ld. R. 84.8 239 23 Oct 1876 One measure only = star HC 84 231 14 Jul 1989 --- HC -- --- 25 Oct 1983 "Both novae are stars." eF nova Ld. R. ssf 3-4 min 8 Nov 1866 Estimated position Stars HC (same) (same) 14 Jul 1989 "Only stars here" Star Ld. R. 199 225 31 Dec 1866 Ld. R. 201.6 240.1 23 Oct 1876 "* 11m. sp [GC] 172" HC 201 235 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch Star Ld. R. 0+- 3.25min 23 Oct 1876 "* 11.12m, 3.25min exactly north of [GC] 172." HC 357 170 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch Gal B HC 91 303 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch MT 90+- 4min Jun 1989? Gal C HC 215 185 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch Gal "D" HC 338 92 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch, unlabeled That's all the observations there are, aside from the modern work on NGC 307 (photometry, spectroscopy, etc.). Dreyer's NGC positions (and the offsets from NGC 307) are derived from Lord Rosse's measurements, so don't give us any new data. As you can see, my measurements agree (within the errors, a few arc seconds, and about 2 deg in PA) exactly with Lord Rosse's, and pinpoint the two stars as the "nebulae" that he found. Adding to my conviction that this must be correct is the fact that the galaxies C and D are approximately the same brightness as B, yet Lord Rosse mentions neither, in spite of the fact that he noticed the star further to the north of D and NGC 307. I also suspect that [Thomson] is correct that the "...2st., 13.14 m. sf" Lord Rosse's "...similar object, more stellar" seen during the 1876 observation are probably the two that [Thomson] mentioned, but that he (LdR) again missed the real nebula (B). There is a faint possibility that Lord Rosse actually saw the nucleus of B and just one of the sf stars, but this would need confirmation. I think he also may have glimpsed the faint star very close sff NGC 307 on 8 Nov 1866: "...on the p side is either a * close or some other appearance different to the f. side." However, since there is no star on the western side that I can see on the print, it is only the "some other appearance to the f. side" that offers evidence of this, so I wouldn't want to push this. In sum, I have no choice but to stand by my original conclusion that both NGC 308 and 310 are stars mistaken for nebulae. The agreement in the distances and position angles from NGC 307 allows no other conclusion. ===== NGC 310. See NGC 308. ===== NGC 311. See NGC 313. ===== NGC 313 is a triple star (the third star is very close to the northern of the brighter two) about an arcminute north west of NGC 315. Lord Rosse observed the group (NGC 311 and NGC 318 are the other two bona fide galaxies in it) on six different nights, and saw the triple as nebulous on all but one night when he noted it as a double star (his sketch was apparently made on that night as it shows N313 as a double star). His micrometric offsets from N315 on three nights point exactly to the triple. The southern star is just bright enough that it was picked up in GSC. The position I've adopted is midway between this and the image of the northern two stars. ===== NGC 315. See NGC 313, NGC 316, and NGC 318. ===== NGC 316 is a single star 45 arcsec east of NGC 315. Lord Rosse has four micrometric measurements of it, all refered to N315, so there is no confusion as to which object he was looking at. ===== NGC 318. Even though Lord Rosse saw this on just one of the six nights on which he observed the group around NGC 315, it is nevertheless correctly placed in his diagram, and is correctly described by him. The NGC position is pretty good. ===== NGC 321. The mess with this number is partly my fault. While working on RC2, I noticed that there is nothing at the (incorrect) RC1 position of "A0055." However, MCG -01-03-041 is just one degree south and 0.1 minute east of the RC1 position. I immediately jumped at this, and followed MCG in misidentifying the galaxy as N321. Early versions of ESGC perpetuate the error. However, the real NGC 321 is actually MCG -01-03-043 (which MCG calls N325, but that is MCG -01-03-45; are we confused yet?!). It was found by Marth in August or September of 1864, and is the first -- and faintest -- of four. The others are NGC 325 = MCG -01-03-045, N327 = MCG -01-03-047, and N329 = MCG -01-03-048. Marth's positions are very good, and his brief descriptions are appropriate. Even so, MCG managed to misidentify the first two of the four. By the way: the galaxy called "A0055" in RC1 is MCG -01-03-041 (I got the correct object, but put the wrong name on it). This object is the parent galaxy of SN 1939D, discovered by Zwicky (see Harvard Announcement Card #518), and included in his sample in ApJ 96, 28, 1942. He gives a relatively coarse position (00h 54m, -05d 20m; labeled "1938.0" in the ApJ paper, but "1939.0" in the HAC) which is nevertheless good enough to pinpoint MCG -01-03-041 as the correct galaxy. He notes the type as "Sb" in ApJ; he classified it on the 18-inch Schmidt film on which the supernova was found. ESGC calls it "SB(r)c pec" from a glass copy of the 48-inch POSS1 plate, in pretty good agreement. Zwicky also says in the HAC, "The spiral in which [the supernova] appears belongs to a small group of nebulae including N321, N325, N327, [and] N329 at the estimated distance of 7 million parsecs." Thus, the galaxy cannot be N321, so we can take his position as correct and pointing at MCG -01-03-041. (MCG -01-03-042 = Mark 966 is 4.0 arcmin on to the northeast, and is compact and overexposed on the POSS1, showing little trace of spiral structure; it would have been nearly stellar on the 18-inch films.) ===== NGC 324. John Herschel's observation reads: "F; S; Stellar; the bad definition of a south-easter prevents certainty, but I think it is not a star." His position (precessed to 1950.0): 00 54 55 -40 43.2. There is nothing here, but just 30 arcmin south at 00 54 56 -41 13.8 is a galaxy that agrees with Herschel's description, and was taken by ESO and RC3 as N324. I1609 (chosen by RNGC) at 00 57 28 -40 36.1 is also a possibility, but there is no easy digit error in the position that could account for Herschel's position. Therefore, I'm pretty sure that there is simply a 30 arcmin error in Herschel's position. ===== NGC 325 is MCG -01-03-045, not MCG -01-03-043. See NGC 321 for more. ===== NGC 327. See NGC 321. ===== NGC 329. See NGC 321. ===== NGC 331 may be MCG -01-03-012 which is 11m 30s west of the very rough position given by Leavenworth, who notes the RA as "doubtful." If we make a -10 minute correction to the RA, that places Leavenworth's nebula 1m 30s east of the MCG object. This is within the errors of being at the +2 minute systematic offset that many of the Leander McCormick nebulae show in their RAs. The declinations are usually within an arcminute, and there is a star (somewhat fainter than Leavenworth's rough estimate of 12th mag) three arcmin northeast of the galaxy. Since there is no other reasonable candidate object in the area, I've tentatively adopted the identification. There is apparently no extant sketch. Another suggested identification for N331 is MCG -01-03-039. But this has a very bright star just 5 arcmin west-northwest. Leavenworth would almost certainly have mentioned this, but does not. So, I think that is a less likely candidate than MCG -01-03-012, even though it is closer to the nominal position. ===== NGC 333. See IC 1604. ===== NGC 336 is not, as I supposed earlier, a double star. Thanks to the efforts of Doug Wereb, Bob Bunge, and Brent Archinal, I have a notebook full of copies of the discovery sketches of about a third of the nebulae found at Leander McCormick. These are apparently all the sketches that still exist, and may be all there ever were. In any event, NGC 336 is included among these sketches. It is shown as a small, faint, circular nebula in a field including 3 stars. Fairly close to the (very inaccurate) L-M position is ESO 541-IG002, a faint, peculiar galaxy, perhaps a colliding pair, with the three stars shown in the correct relative positions. The objects suggested as NGC 336 by ESO and RNGC do not have stars nearby matching those in the sketch. Thus, they cannot be NGC 336. ===== NGC 339 is a globular (or rich open) cluster in the SMC. Its core is a bit eccentric, being displaced about 10 arcsec to the northwest from the center of the outer isophotes. Thus, the positions do not agree as well as might be expected from the cluster's relatively small apparent size. This is a feature shared by many clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. In general, the positions I've adopted for the NGC and IC objects are meant to be representative of the object as seen by the discoverer. Where the "feature" becomes a problem, I've explicitely named the part of the object to which the position applies. Thus, N339 has positions for its "core" as well as the "entire cluster." Finally, I have classified the SMC and LMC clusters purely on morphological grounds. Thus, N339 is a "globular" cluster because of its richness, compactness, and relative symmetry. An H-R diagram might tell a different story. Folks interested in the astrophysics of these things will do well to consult the literature to be sure about the classification of any given object. ===== NGC 343 and NGC 344 are a pair of faint galaxies superimposed on the western outskirts of a poor cluster of galaxies. Muller's position is about 4 minutes of time too far west -- the same direction, though about twice as far, as many other Leander McCormick objects are from their true positions -- but his declination is good, and his descriptions are appropriate. The galaxy and star taken as this pair in ESO are too far apart to match Muller's relative positions, the star is too bright, and the galaxy has too low a surface brightness and too faint a nucleus to warrant Muller's notation "sbMN." RNGC also incorrectly picked this galaxy as NGC 344, and ESO may have been following their lead. ===== NGC 344. See NGC 343. ===== NGC 347. This is one of a group of six nebulae found by Albert Marth. There are other fainter nebulae in the area, but Marth has picked out the six brightest. In particular, RNGC got a somewhat larger, but fainter, galaxy about 4 arcmin to the south. This is a spiral with low surface brightness arms, but with a bright nucleus. It is not large enough to have made it into ESGC. I would guess that only the nucleus would be visible at the eyepiece, and the proximity to the 7th magnitude SAO 129088 would make it even harder to spot. The real NGC 347, which I picked up for ESGC, looks like a pair of interacting ellipticals close to Marth's position (however, it could well be simply a peculiar S0 with a dust lane, so I've retained just the single entry in ESGC). The total magnitude is about the same as the RNGC object, but since this has a much higher average surface brightness, it is more likely to be seen visually. A couple of additional comments: Marth's positions are so good here actually surprised me a bit. His positions have not impressed me in other areas of the sky (e.g. NGC 1474 and the other galaxies found that same night -- five out of the ten are more than 5 arcmin off the true positions). But in this area, the positions do seem to be pretty good, so I followed them for the identifications. Bigourdan's observation of NGC 347 may also be relevant. He observed it only once (on 21 Nov 1889), but did not measure its position. His description points clearly to the correct object, however: "I suspect an exceedingly faint object which could be nebulous, and which is situated toward [PA =] 3 deg , d = 4 arcmin, with respect to BD -7 159." This is just where Marth's position places NGC 347, another indication that this really is the object which Marth saw. ===== NGC 370. Is this NGC 372 (which see)? D'Arrest's description reads (translated from the Latin by me using a Latin-English dictionary -- keep in mind that I can't even read my own PhD diploma!), "Faint and diffuse, nucleus not condensed, * 13mag 15 arcsec s." There is nothing at his position (accurately transcribed into the NGC), but just 9 seconds of time east, and about 1 arcmin north is NGC 372 (which see), a triple star. On a night of bad seeing, I suspect that N372 might indeed match d'Arrest's description, though the 13th magnitude star -- which is 10.1 arcsec from the other two in the triplet -- is east-northeast, not south. Thus, it could well be that d'A's object is really just the western two stars of the triplet, rather than all three. d'A's position is also well off; other nebulae in the group that he measured the same night (7 Oct 1861) are close to his positions. So, I remain skeptical, and there are question marks on this number in the table. ===== NGC 372. This is a triple star west of the NGC 383 galaxy group. It was found the night of 12 Dec 1876 by Lord Rosse or his observing assistant at the time (Dreyer). The measured PA and distance from a star near the middle of the galaxy group unambiguously identifies the object, as does the note in its description about another 12th magnitude star at PA 166.5 deg with a distance of 74.0 arcsec. The description itself is telling: "The last nova looks at first sight like a hazy *, the higher power seems to resolve it, at all events sev. luminous points were seen." The south-western two of the stars may also be d'Arrest's object (NGC 370, which see); if so, he's been rather careless about it. ===== NGC 377 is positively identified as MCG -04-03-053 by Leavenworth's sketch and description. His position is well off the mark, of course, so both ESO and SGC missed the identification. ===== NGC 383. See NGC 372. ===== NGC 390 is a star. Bigourdan's offsets point exactly to a star at 01 05 08.6 +32 09 58 (B1950.0, reduced using the GSC coordinates for Bigourdan's comparison star), and his description "vF, stellar" is that which he gives to almost all of the stars which he mistook for nebulae. ===== NGC 396. RNGC places this object more than a degree away from Marth's position. Yet just 5 seconds of time east of the original position is a faint galaxy that Marth could well have seen with the 48-inch reflector. Unfortunately, Marth rarely mentions stars near his nebulae; had he done so in this case, the identity would have been clinched as there is a star just 10 or 12 arcsec northeast of the nucleus of the galaxy. Other than that, however, I see no reason not to identify this galaxy as N396. The GSC position is likely a blend of the galaxy and the star, and thus a few arcsec northeast of the true place. However, my own measurement puts the position a few arcsec north of the GSC position, so perhaps the GSC is OK. There is also a faint double star at 01 05 20 +04 15.7. I doubt that this is the object that Marth saw, but it could be. Still, I'll stick with the faint galaxy. ===== NGC 399. See NGC 400. ===== NGC 400, 401, and 402 are stars at Lord Rosse's measured offsets from NGC 403 and from a nearby star (his distance of N401 from N403 is an estimate, slightly too large). His fourth nova, NGC 399, is a galaxy, also at his measured offset. He also has a sketch showing N403, five nearby stars, and N400 and N401, all in their correct relative positions. ===== NGC 401 is a star. See NGC 400 for a discussion. ===== NGC 402 is a star. See NGC 400 for a discussion. ===== NGC 403. See NGC 400. ===== NGC 404. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 405 is a double star. It was found by John Herschel and is h2380 in his Cape Observations. He has this to say about it: `[RA] 01 00 45.1: [NPD] 137 35 13 (1830.0). A star 7m? After a long and obstinate examination with all powers and apertures, I cannot bring it to a sharp disc and leave it, in doubt whether it be a star or not. The star B 137 immediately preceding offered no such difficulty, giving a good disc with 320. [JH's italics:] No doubt a "Stellar Nebula."' I noted earlier, "JH's object is clearly a double star on the Southern Sky Survey (was it closer together in JH's time?), and I put it in the SGC Notes as such." However, on the DSS image, the two stars are not resolved. SIMBAD has the separation as 1.2 arcsec at 191 degrees (measured in 1954), and has another fainter star (component "C") at 47.5 arcsec and 81 degrees in 1913. That fainter star is partially covered by the diffraction spike on the Schmidt plate. In any event, we now know why JH could not bring the star to a "sharp disk". ===== NGC 407. See NGC 408. ===== NGC 408, Schultz's "Nova III," is a star at his carefully measured position. It is just 8 seconds west of NGC 410 = H II 220, which Schultz also measured. Note that he has reversed the names of "Nova III" and H II 219 = NGC 407 in his 1875 MN paper. Dreyer has sorted them out for the NGC, however. Schultz's other discovery ("Nova IV" = NGC 414) in the area, is a peculiar interacting galaxy. His position for it is excellent, as are those for NGC 407 and NGC 410. ===== NGC 410. See NGC 408. ===== NGC 412. Leavenworth has left us a sketch of this nebula, as well as the usual poor position and brief description. Unfortunately, his sketch shows only one star in the field, about 5 arcmin southwest of the nebula, so the field will not be easy to recognize. The sketch is one of the few to have the orientation marked, so that is not a problem here as it is with some of the LM nebulae. In fact, I can't find Leavenworth's object anywhere near his position. Nor are there any other nebula/star pairs within several degrees of that position that match the sketch, either. The galaxy chosen by ESO, 3.8 minutes preceding and 19 arcmin south of Leavenworth's position does not match the sketch, so that cannot be the object, either. Leavenworth added a note "Neb?" to his description, so it is possible that the object is simply a star. However, I could not even find two stars in the correct relative orientation in the area that would match the sketch. The sketch is dated 15 Oct 1885. Leavenworth made at least four other sketches that same night. They are of N377, N540, N635, and N842 (all of which see). Of these, N540's identification is unsure, and N635 is three degrees south of its nominal position. Assuming all four identities, though, the average offset of Leavenworth's positions in RA is +25.3 seconds of time with a mean error of +-32.2 seconds, and a standard deviation in one observation of +-64.5 seconds (all are at roughly the same declination, so the conversion to arcseconds can be ignored given the size of these numbers). In Dec, the equivalent numbers are -5.3 arcmin, +-4.2 arcmin, and +-8.4 arcmin. Given offsets and errors of this size, and the three-degree accidental error for N635, NGC 412 could be ANYwhere within several degrees of Leavenworth's nominal position. But I still can't find it. So, unless other folks want to spend more time on the field, NGC 412 is probably irretrieveably lost. ===== NGC 414. See NGC 408. ===== NGC 420. See NGC 421. ===== NGC 421 may be one of the several faint stars or wide double stars west of NGC 420. WH found the objects on 12 Sept 1784, describing them as "Two. Both eF, vS. The following is the largest." The field was examined again by JH, LdR, d'Arrest, and Bigourdan, none of whom found NGC 421, but all of whom placed NGC 420 within 5 seconds of time of WH's position for the pair. Dreyer has a curious statement in his note in the Scientific Papers (1912). Citing the observers above as having "... seen only one nebula," he goes on with "no doubt the following one." Yet all the observers have assigned the preceding number (H III 154 = N420) to the object. Dreyer himself followed JH's lead in this, giving the earlier number to the object that JH, d'A, and LdR all saw. In any case, there is no nebula in the area that might be N421. Since assigning the number to one of the stellar objects mentioned above is pure speculation, I'm not going to do it. Thus, N421 is "Not found." ===== NGC 443 = IC 1653. D'Arrest has a single observation of the galaxy from the night of 8 October 1861. He published it in AN 1500, and again in his big monograph. The declination is 0.5 arcmin greater in the monograph, but it is still nine arcmin too small. I suspect a digit error in the arcminute 10's place. With that, the position would be within an arcmin or so of the true position. D'A's note about the 15th magnitude star 8.3 seconds of time preceding the galaxy is correct -- the actual distance is 7.9 seconds. Javelle rediscovered the galaxy over 40 years later in 1903. His micrometric observation, re-reduced with respect to a modern position for his comparison star, is within a couple of arcseconds of the modern positions. ===== NGC 444 = IC 1658. Lord Rosse discovered NGC 444, observing it on four separate nights. He placed it roughly five arcmin west of NGC 452, but did not make any micrometric measurements of it. The NGC position is probably from Dreyer himself, and is about 30 seconds west of the actual position. The identity is secure, however -- the galaxy and surrounding star field are exactly described by LdR and his observers. Javelle's position for IC 1658 is within a few arcsec of the GSC position, so the identity of this object is also secure. Javelle's comparison star, BD +30 192, is, not coincidentally (it is the brightest star in the area), mentioned by Lord Rosse who notes that NGC 444 is about twice as far from NGC 452 as the star. ===== NGC 446 = IC 89. Found by Marth in 1864, this is one of his objects that he "verified" -- that is, reobserved. Nevertheless, his RA (and therefore, the NGC's) is just one minute of time off the true position. This is probably a transcription or typographical error. The declination is within an arcminute of being correct, however. IC 89 has a good micrometrically measured position in IC1 from Javelle's first list. RNGC has suggested that UGC 794 is NGC 446. That galaxy, though, is considerably fainter than the real N446, and its position is off by odd amounts from Marth's: 13 seconds of time, and 7 arcminutes. That identity is therefore unlikely. ===== NGC 447 = IC 1656. This is misnamed "NGC 449" in CGCG, and that has unfortunately carried over into several other catalogues. The galaxy was found by d'Arrest who observed it on four different nights, each time measuring its position with a micrometer. His position is good, as is his description, especially concerning an 11th magnitude star 9.2 seconds of time east and 110 arcseconds north of the nebula -- the star is there, so the identification is secure. IC 1656 was found about 40 years later by Barnard. Since this is one of the nebulae which he "published" in a private communication to Dreyer, we have only the position and description in the second IC to guide us. His RA is good, but the declination is about 1.4 arcmin north of the galaxy. His description is similarly confused, "Neb, S * close sf, *9 sf 3 arcmin." The "S * close sf" is indeed superposed on the southeastern edge side of the galaxy (the GSC position is a blend of this and the galaxy), but the "* 9 sf 3 arcmin" is actually northwest by three minutes. It is the same star that d'Arrest called 11th magnitude. Still, the are no other galaxies in the area with quite that arrangement of stars around them, so Barnard's object is certainly the same one that d'Arrest had seen earlier. See NGC 451 = IC 1661 for more about Barnard's observations in the area. ===== NGC 449. Mislabeled "NGC 447" in CGCG, this galaxy (Markarian 1) has had its incorrect name unfortunately carried over into several other catalogues. There is, however, no doubt as to the correct number as the NGC position (from a micrometric measurement by Stephan) is within a few arcsec of the GSC position. This is the first of three new "nebulae" in the area that Stephan found late in 1881 using the large refractor at Marseille. The other two are NGC 451 and NGC 453, both of which see for more information. ===== NGC 451 = IC 1661, and is another of Barnard's IC discoveries sent directly to Dreyer (Stephan discovered the object, and his observation led to the NGC entry). It is also the second of two nebulae which Barnard found in the area. Like the first (NGC 447, which see), there is possible confusion about its identification. In this case, Barnard's description is sparce, "eF, S, R" and his position has the RA of NGC 451, but is closer in declination to NGC 449. Two things convince me that Barnard reobserved NGC 451 (which is just where Stephan measured it to be): 1) this galaxy is brighter than N449 by at least a magnitude, and it is larger, too. 2) Barnard's declination is about 1.2 arcmin north of the true place of NGC 451, just as his declination of N447 is about 1.4 arcmin north of that galaxy. If he observed both objects on the same night, as seems likely, then the offset will be systematic. Since we know the identification of N447 = I1656 is solid, it follows that N451 must be I1661. ===== NGC 452. See NGC 444. ===== NGC 453 is a linear triple star found by Stephan. The stars are exactly where Stephan measured them to be, and his description mentions "one or two" vF stars involved. On a night of less than perfect seeing, the three stars must indeed resemble a faint nebula laced with even fainter stars. ===== NGC 464 is actually a triple star, though I noted it earlier as a double. The northwestern component is a blended double on the DSS image. Here is the historical note. Though credited to Tempel (in his fifth list of observations of nebulae), it was actually found by the BD observers as they swept the field. Tempel has only this to say about it: "Im Atlas vom Argelander einen kleinen neuen Nebel verzeichnet in: 01 11 25, +34 12" [In Argelander's Atlas, there is a small, new nebula plotted at ...]. Since the BD was made with a 78-mm refractor, Argelander's observer could not have seen the faint galaxy fingered by RNGC. ===== NGC 468 = IC 92, which see. ===== NGC 469. See NGC 475. ===== NGC 471. See NGC 475. ===== NGC 475 = IC 97. Marth discovered three galaxies here (NGC 469, 471, and 475), and his positions are pretty good. Two of his positions got changed for the NGC, however -- for the worse. Dreyer credits Peters for N475 as well as Marth, and it is apparently Peters's position which throws off the NGC. Marth's original position is within a minute of Bigourdan's measured place for IC 97, so the identity is certain. The object which Bigourdan calls N475 is a star near the incorrect NGC position. ===== NGC 480. The identification is not sure since there is no sketch of the object and its field. Nevertheless, the faint galaxy I've assigned the number to is not too far from Leavenworth's position, and matches his description. ===== NGC 483. See NGC 499. ===== NGC 486, about 5 arcmin north-northwest of NGC 488, is a compact galaxy with a faint star superposed on its eastern side. LdR's sketch is accurate, as are his offsets. ===== NGC 488. See NGC 486. ===== NGC 490. See NGC 492. ===== NGC 492 has a somewhat fainter companion about an arcmin southwest. LdR does not mention two objects here, and his micrometric offset of N492 from N490 is exactly on the brighter object, so there is no possible confusion of identities here. ===== NGC 498 is the object labeled "D" in the first two of LdR's diagrams of the group around NGC 499. Though he has no measured offsets for it, he clearly saw it the second night: "vvF, but certain" and the diagrams leave no doubt as to the correct object. ===== NGC 499 = IC 1686 is the brightest of a moderately compact group of galaxies in a cluster of which NGC 507 is the dominant member. It, with six others in the cluster, was found by WH. JH reobserved five of the six, but mislabeled a "nova" (NGC 483) as the first of his father's objects (d'Arrest makes the same mistake). Lord Rosse has observations on 8 different nights, and -- with the exception of NGC 483 in the first observation -- got the identifications correct. Schultz also got the correct objects, and Dreyer sorted the field out well for the NGC. Javelle swept over the field late in 1899, finding and measuring a dozen objects in the area that he took to be previously uncatalogued. However, his accurate position and exact description of one of those "novae" points directly at NGC 499 -- in spite of the fact that he has a footnote on the object saying that "NGC 499 was also measured." He has clearly misidentified the object in the crowded field. Since he unfortunately does not publish his measurements of the NGC objects, we cannot now be sure just which galaxy he mistook for NGC 499. Dreyer did not catch Javelle's error (Javelle's absolute declination is about 1.7 arcmin off since he used the BD position, also 1.7 arcmin off, for his comparison star), so the galaxy now carries the IC, as well as the NGC, number. ===== NGC 506 is a star just over an arcmin southwest of NGC 507. It was seen and its offsets measured on one night by LdR. The offsets are good and the identity is sure. ===== NGC 507 is the brightest of a relatively poor, though nearby cluster of galaxies. There are several notes about the area; see e.g. NGC 499 = IC 1686, and NGC 506. ===== NGC 510 is a double star found by Schultz. His micrometrically measured position is within a couple of arcseconds of being correct. ===== NGC 513. This is one of the galaxies that WH found the night of 13 Sept 1784. This, along all but one of the others, have poor positions in NGC. RC3 managed to get the correct position, however. See NGC 537 for the story. ===== NGC 515. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 517. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 520 is apparently an interacting galaxy. Classified as an I0 by de Vaucouleurs, the distorted dust lane and unresolved bulge with plumes may be the result of a collision. Vorontsov-Velyaminov marks three components in his Atlas of Interacting Galaxies; I've provided positions for them in the table. However, in the near-infrared, the structure is simpler with a bright peak at the center connected by a bridge to a somewhat fainter knot to the northwest (this fainter knot has no optical counterpart). The central peak breaks up into at least three hot spots in the 2MASS J-band. The J2000.0 positions are Central peak, K-band: 01 24 34.89 +03 47 30.1 Central peak, H-band: 01 24 34.86 +03 47 29.9 Central peak, J-band: 01 24 34.86 +03 47 28.3 southeast spot Central peak, J-band: 01 24 34.65 +03 47 35.0 northwest spot Central peak, J-band: 01 24 35.04 +03 47 33.1 northeast spot Northwestern knot: 01 24 33.33 +03 48 02.8 The southern of the three optical components (VV 231b) corresponds most closely to the position of the infrared/radio nucleus. ===== NGC 523 = NGC 537, which see. ===== NGC 529. See NGC 531 and NGC 537. ===== NGC 530 = IC 106, which see. Also see IC 1696 which is a different galaxy. ===== NGC 531 and NGC 542 are positively identified by LdR's sketch and offsets from NGC 536. However, Dreyer, apparently thinking that NGC 529 was the bright object reobserved by LdR, used an incorrect position for the reference object. So, the positions he gives in LdR's 1880 paper, and in the NGC, are off by about 40 arcsec. ===== NGC 534. See NGC 549. ===== NGC 536. See NGC 531 and NGC 537. ===== NGC 537 = NGC 523, and the surroundings. The night of 13 September 1784 was not a good one for WH's clock readings. With one exception (H II 224 = NGC 404), all eight objects for which he used Beta Andromedae as a comparison star are off in RA, and -- as it has turned out -- by different amounts. In addition, his descriptions are scanty, so identifying his nebulae has proved difficult over the years. Here is the story, roughly in chronological order. WH's seven questionable objects (III 167 through III 173; NGC 515, 517, 513, 523, 536, 552, and 553, respectively -- yes, NGC 513 is out of order) all appeared in his sweep within 3 minutes of each other. Given the rush, he determined the positions for only five of them, lumping four together into two pairs, and treating the remaining three individually. In addition, Dreyer noted that WH recorded three transits -- III 167/8, 170, and 171 -- to only a full minute of time. Finally, WH himself noted the final two as "a little doubtful." JH has only five nebulae here. He claimed one (h120) to be the same as his father's III 171, and the western of that pair (h118) to be a nova. Auwers, and later d'Arrest, agreed with JH in making H III 171 = h 120, but noted the difficulties in Herschel's RAs for some of the nebulae. d'Arrest in particular pointed out discrepancies of about 40 seconds of time between his own RA's and WH's in several cases, and found what he thought was a new double nebula in the field (NGC 523). However, while assembling the GC, JH reinterpreted the field and chose to regard the nebulae that his father discovered as separate objects from his own. Dreyer, too, was aware of the problem when he compiled the NGC, and attempted to sort things out based primarily on d'A's observations. It's clear, however, that he was a bit uncertain about the state of the field as he wrote NGC notes for some of the objects, and commented again on all of them in his 1912 edition of WH's Scientific Papers. How can we make sense out of the two Herschels' observations? Let's start by assuming that WH's nebulae are properly ordered by RA, and that their polar distances (Declinations) are also relatively correct. Doing this, and looking at JH's and d'A's later observations, we can make some tentative identifications for NGC 513, 515, 517, and 536. Plotting the difference in RA (WH minus "true") for these, we see that as the time went on, WH's RA's got worse. Plotting a straight line through the data points, and putting a mark at WH's RA for III 170 = NGC 537 suggests an RA correction of about 0.9 minutes of time for it. This moves the RA back to within 0.2 arcmin of NGC 523, and confirms Dreyer's suspicion in the NGC Notes that WH's number belongs on this NGC number. Adding this point to the plot actually suggests that the slope might be even steeper. But what about N536 = III 171? Did WH really see that, or did he perhaps see its brighter, higher surface brightness companion, N529, which precedes it by about 40 seconds? (N536's two fainter companions found by Lord Rosse, N531 and N542, have problems of their own; they have a seperate note here under N531). Assuming WH in fact did see the western of the two objects, we can then draw a new line through the points on the plot (this steeper relationship suggests that WH's clock was running at about half speed!) in a desperate attempt to recover his final two objects, N552 and N553. If we correct WH's RA accordingly, the position of these two objects falls close to CGCG 502-084 and an equally bright 15th magnitude star just west of it. Finally, I note that -- with the exception of NGC 513, the first object in the series -- all of WH's declinations here are 3-4 arcmin too large. This lends a bit of support to the hypothesis I've sketched out. In the end, then, I'm suggesting these identifications for the nebulae in the area (the CGCG names added for verification): RA (1950.0) Dec NGC WH JH d'A CGCG III WH JH 01 21 37.32 +33 32 21.0 513 169 111 --- --- 521-020 01 21 49.18 +33 12 45.9 515 167 113 167 113 502-077 01 21 54.47 +33 10 10.6 517 168 114 168 114 502-079 01 22 31.01 +33 45 54.7 523=537 170 --- (Nova) 521-022 01 22 50.01 +34 27 11.6 529 171 118 --- 118 521-023 01 23 31.25 +34 26 38.7 536 --- 120 171 120 521-025 01 23 20.45 +33 08 46.8 552 172 --- --- --- --- = * 01 23 22.94 +33 08 44.7 553 173 --- --- --- 502-084 The careful reader will have already seen that the RA's for N552 and N553 are smaller than that for N536. This adds more weight to the idea that Herschel saw N529 rather than N536. A postscript: both Auwers and d'Arrest comment about WH's insecure RA's for these objects. However, d'A apparently goes on to suggest that some of JH's RA's are off, too. But they aren't, so I clearly need to take the time to translate the comments. ===== NGC 539 = NGC 563, which see. ===== NGC 540 is one of the 170 or so nebulae found at Leander McCormick in the mid-1880s to have a sketch. Unfortunately, the sketch shows only one star in addition to the nebula. However, that field is fairly well matched by ESO 542- G012 1 minute and 50 seconds east and about 5 arcmin south. I've taken that as a tentative identification for N540. See NGC 412 for another LM nebula with a sketch that did not work out so well. ===== NGC 542. See NGC 531. ===== NGC 544. See NGC 549. ===== NGC 546. See NGC 549. ===== NGC 549. Steve Gottlieb has suggested that the SGC identification of this galaxy is incorrect. He is almost certainly right, in spite of the poor right ascension from John Herschel (18 seconds of time off); Herschel's declination is correct, though. The SGC galaxy is 15 arcminutes south and 4 seconds of time east of Herschel's position. Though this is brighter, it does not match Herschel's description ("eeeF, S, R, vgbM. The 4th of a group of 4."). Instead, this matches very closely what I'd expect him to see based on his descriptions of the other three galaxies in the group (NGC 534, 544, and 546, all "eeF, S, R, vgbM"). Accepting Steve's identification, the only error is in Herschel's RA. For each of the other three galaxies, Herschel has two observations, but only lists one for N549. There are no significant zero point offsets in the differences between the raw positions for the other three galaxies. This means that we have no reasonable way to "correct" the original position of N549 as given by Herschel. This in turn means that we are left with only the description to help us identify the galaxy. And that points directly to the object which Steve (and the original ESO list 5 in A&A Sup) chose as NGC 549. ===== NGC 551. See IC 1707. ===== NGC 552. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 553. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 557 = IC 1703. NGC 557 comes from Swift's 6th list, sent in pieces to Dreyer before it was published. The final published description reads: "eF, S; B * f 15 seconds and is n of it." This differs a bit from the NGC description: "eF, S, R, * 10 nf," but not in any significant way. The star is actually south-following, but the galaxy is still almost uniquely identified by that star. Swift's RA is nearly 50 seconds of time out, and I wonder if he made a 1 minute error in reading his circles -- a 10 or 12 second error is somewhat closer to his usual accuracy. Bigourdan did not find N557 when he looked for it at the NGC place, but he did run across it a few minutes later. Thinking it was a "nova," he listed it as new and it ended up in the IC2 at its actual position. ===== NGC 563 = NGC 539. Leavenworth's description for NGC 563, particularly his comments "little extended 0 deg" (which applies to the bar) and "several faint stars following, in line north and south" exactly describes another discovery of his, NGC 539 (which he sketched; the star field around the galaxy matches the POSS1 star field). The position for NGC 563 is two minutes too far east, a common error in the Leander McCormick lists. Unfortunately, there is another galaxy about half a degree south of the poor position in NGC that has been taken by all the modern cataloguers (including me in SGC and the early versions of ESGC) as N563. However, the description just does not fit the object, and declination errors are far more unusual in the LM lists than RA errors. The identity with N539 is secure. ===== NGC 568 = IC 1709, which see. ===== NGC 575 = IC 1710. The 2 degree error in declination is one of the few errors that can be traced to Dreyer himself. Entering this object in his 1878 GC Supplement, he miscopied the correct "69" (degrees of NPD) as "67" (It is also possible that the typesetter made a typographical error. If so, Dreyer did not catch it during proofreading.) He later transferred this exactly to the NGC, so it too has the incorrect degree of NPD. When the correction is made, the galaxy turns out to be the same as IC 1710, found and measured by Javelle. Had the NGC the correct position, Javelle no doubt would have not included the galaxy as a discovery of his own. Dreyer, of course, transcribed the position correctly the second time around. The equality was first noticed by Reinmuth, and mentioned by him in "Die Herschel Nebel" of 1926. ===== NGC 577 = NGC 580. Tempel claims to have found two nebulae 2m 50s following NGC 560 and 564, a pair found by WH. There is only one here, and it was also picked up by Swift in 1886 (more below) and, even earlier in 1867, by A. N. Skinner at Dearborn Observatory (see IC 1528 for that story). Tempel's position for it, apparently from a letter to Dreyer -- the position in his first paper on nebulae is about two arcmin off the NGC position -- is not bad. In particular, the NGC RA is less than two seconds of time off. Curiously, Dreyer also credits Tempel's second paper for this first nebula. I find no mention of it there, so suspect that Dreyer simply noted the wrong paper number. I'll check the rest of Tempel's papers to see if it is in fact mentioned in any of them. The second of Tempel's nebulae is probably one of the stars in the area, but since he gives the position with a precision of only 10 seconds of time and 10 arcminutes, we have little hope of recovering his object (Dreyer adopted Swift's position for this object). There are two stars northeast of the galaxy, though, that are similar in brightness to others that Tempel mistook for nebulae (see e.g. NGC 4315 and NGC 4322). One is at 01 28 12.05, -02 13 01.0; and a second somewhat brighter star is at 01 28 19.78, -02 12 20.3 (both positions are for equinox B1950.0). As I mentioned above, Swift also picked up the galaxy, on the night of 20 November 1886. Since he made his RA 23 seconds larger than Tempel's, Dreyer believed that this was the second of Tempel's nebulae. So, he adopted Swift's position. Howe corrected the RA in an observation in 1898, but neither he nor Dreyer, who published the correction as an IC2 Note, noticed that that made Swift's object, NGC 580, identical to NGC 577. Some observers might want to put one of these numbers onto one of the stars I've noted. But that number would be the following of Tempel's two, the one with the imprecise position -- and that is the one that Dreyer used for Swift's object. And we do not know for sure which star, if either, is the one seen by Tempel. So the easiest, and still a truthful, solution is to simply say that Tempel's one real nebula is identical to Swift's. ===== NGC 580 = NGC 577, which see. ===== NGC 584 = IC 1712, which see. ===== NGC 586. See IC 1712. ===== NGC 587 is not IC 1713, which see. ===== NGC 603 is a triple star found by Lord Rosse. It's position was unfortunately not well-determined, so there has been some puzzle over its identity. Dreyer, in the Notes to IC1, claimed that he could only see a faint star in the place of NGC 603. (I've been unable to identify this star with any certainty. One candidate is at 01 31 30.4, +29 55 58, B1950.0, while Bigourdan has two observations of another at 01 31 44.7, +29 56 42.) However, Lord Rosse's description makes the identification certain, even without a good position: "A small nebula or cluster with 3 stars in it. It is about 8 arcmin south-southpreceding a double star whose components are of the 11th magnitude." This is very close to the actual distance of the double from the triple star -- but there is no nebulosity or cluster associated with the triple. I suspect that the discovery was made on a night of relatively poor seeing, leading to the impression of accompanying nebulosity. The B1950.0 positions of the three stars, all from GSC, are *1 01 31 54.54 +29 58 37.1 = GSC 02293-00972 *2 01 31 54.85 +29 58 45.4 = GSC 02293-00966 *3 01 31 55.37 +29 58 31.6 = GSC 02293-00998. I've adopted the mean value for the main table. ===== NGC 607 is a double star. (Is it possibly triple? The northern of two images on the POSS1 looks elongated, as if it were a close double. The DSS image, from the UK Schmidt, looks like a single star). D'Arrest's position is exact, and his description appropriate, particularly regarding the 9th magnitude star 29.7 seconds east and 2 arcmin north. ===== NGC 608. See NGC 618 and NGC 627. ===== NGC 610 and 611. This pair of objects is probably irretrieveably lost, thanks to Muller's poor discovery positions. I searched the sky for several degrees in all directions from the nominal positions, but turned up nothing that matches Muller's description. In particular, there are no galaxies in the area with a 10th magnitude star at position angle = 280 degrees, distance 2.4 arcmin. Muller also gives an "accurate" offset of N611 from N610: "Following previous at PA 60 degrees, dist = 0.5 arcmin," but then adds, "vF *?" This would be a striking configuration -- even if the second object is a star -- but it's nowhere in the area that I can see. There is no sketch, but even if there were, it could only confirm Muller's clear descriptions. Wolfgang Steinicke again drew my attention to this missing pair in July 1998. I made a further search at "reasonable" digit errors (e.g. 1hr in RA, 10deg in Dec), but found nothing matching Muller's description anywhere near any of the resulting positions. It may be worthwhile for other interested investigators to cover the areas, too -- they may have more luck than I. ===== NGC 611. See NGC 610. ===== NGC 614 = NGC 627, which see. It may also be NGC 618. See that, too. ===== NGC 616 is a double star. As with NGC 607, d'A's position is very good, and his description fits the object. In addition, his offsets -- 14.2 seconds west and 4 arcmin north -- to an 8th magnitude star are correct. ===== NGC 618 may be NGC 614 (which is also NGC 627, which see) -- or it may be NGC 608. JH's position points at nothing, and there is no star 2 min 51 sec east of that position as his description claims. NGC 614 fits his description ("pB, pL, bM") but the fairly bright star follows by only 55 sec. Is there perhaps a combination of transcription errors and/or typos in JH's offset to the star? I'm thinking perhaps that the superscript "m" on the 2 in his description stands for "magnitude" rather than "minute." The star, of course, is not 2nd magnitude -- this is where the error would have to occur. Whatever the case, there is certainly an error in JH's position for the galaxy. Is his object NGC 608? This is not quite as likely; N608 is the fainter of the two galaxies in the area. Also, N618 was found during a different sweep (102) than NGC 608 and NGC 614 (both sweep 106), and different again from N627 (sweep 100), the other "missing" object in the area. I'm tempted to simply equate N618 with N608, and N627 with N614. But the relative magnitudes, and the fact that N618 and N627 were found during different sweeps argues in favor of JH having seen only the brightest object during each sweep. So, I note the possibility of the identity of N618 with N614 or with N608, but would not bet my Pentium on it! ===== NGC 627 = NGC 614 (which may also be NGC 618, which see). JH's description reads "vF, R; another precedes which must be III. 174. The RA conjectural, and PD liable to some error." As noted in the discussion of NGC 618, JH has three sweeps over this area. During the first sweep (100), he picked up the two objects noted in his description that I've just given, during the second sweep (102) he found just one object (N618, which see), and during the third (106), he found another (N614). Since there are just two galaxies here, it is reasonable to suppose that JH picked them both up once, and noticed only the brightest on the other two sweeps. But, as I noted above, JH's positions and descriptions do not rule out other interpretations, so this is simply conjecture. ===== NGC 629 is a short line of five stars six or seven arcmin west-southwest of Struve's position. I've pulled the data for this from Auwers's list of novae attached to his catalogue of WH's nebulae and clusters. There he notes "Not seen in the Heliometer." However, Struve's description ("Irregular nebula with 3 stars") with his 9-inch Fraunhofer refractor certainly fits the asterism well enough. It reminds me of NGC 7150 (which see), another -- though somewhat smaller and fainter -- asterism also found with a refractor (the 16-inch at Harvard) by an experienced observer (G.P. Bond). ===== NGC 635 is probably MCG -04-05-002 just 3 degrees south of Leavenworth's nominal position. His sketch matches the galaxy and surrounding star field very well, so I'm willing to accept that he made a simple mistake in recording the declination. ===== NGC 643. This is a star cluster in the SMC. The RC3 galaxy with this designation is actually the one that de Vaucouleurs called NGC 643B. ===== NGC 648 = IC 146, which see. ===== NGC 652 has a +13 second error in its RA. It shares this with three other nebulae which Swift discovered the same night. See those (NGC 1450, N1509 = IC 2026, and N1594 = I2075) for more. Also see N1677 = N1659 for other notes about that night of 22 October 1886. ===== NGC 657 looks like a poor cluster of relatively bright stars against the crowded backdrop of the Milky Way. JH has it as "A ** (h2070), the chief of a p rich loose cl; sts 12." His position is for the double, SAO 22555, but the apparent center -- a rough circle of 5 stars -- of the cluster is about 4 arcmin southwest of the double. ===== NGC 674 = NGC 697. The right ascensions are just 2 minutes different, so it seems likely that N674 is another observation of N697. This strikes me as the only reasonable interpretation of d'A's observations, in spite of the fact that he claims to have found N674 on a night when he also observed N697. Is the night number, 4, perhaps in error? d'A also observed N697 on nights 5 and 93, but saw N674 only once. In any case, the descriptions are virtually identical, down to the 14th magnitude star 8 or 9 seconds east, and there are no other objects in the area that d'A would have described as "pB, vmE." ===== NGC 684 = IC 165, which see. ===== NGC 687 is not IC 1737, which see. ===== NGC 696. See NGC 729. ===== NGC 697 = NGC 674, which see. ===== NGC 698. See NGC 729. ===== NGC 700 is CGCG 522-030, not the larger but fainter CGCG 522-027. LdR has the object 8 arcmin southwest of the center of the NGC 705 group; CGCG 522-030 is 8.1 arcmin southwest, while -027 is 6.5 arcmin west-southwest. Since its surface brightness is higher than -027's, it is the more likely to have been seen. This is indeed Steve Gottlieb's experience. He notes that while he could pick out -027 in his 17.5-inch reflector, only the nucleus was visible as a nearly stellar object, while -030 was clearly the more nebulous of the two. ===== NGC 705. See NGC 700. ===== NGC 716 = IC 1743. Swift's RA for the NGC object is good, but his declination is almost exactly 40 arcmin too far south. His description -- including the bright star near east -- is appropriate, so the identity (first suggested by Dreyer in the IC2 notes) is almost certain. There is no question of the identity of IC 1743. It was found by Bigourdan, and his four micrometric offsets point exactly at the galaxy. ===== NGC 718 is probably not also NGC 728, which see. ===== NGC 719 = IC 1744. D'Arrest's RA is 13 seconds of time off. This is close enough that either Dreyer or Javelle might have had some questions about the identity, especially given that the descriptions are so close. Well, that didn't happen, so the galaxy has two numbers now. ===== NGC 723 = NGC 724. JH missed this one when he was putting his GC together. In his 1833 PT catalogue he notes for h167 (N724): "It is barely possible [those two words in JH's italics] that this may be III.460 [N723] with a mistake in reading the PD. When he swept this up at the Cape a few years later, he specifically noted "No other neb within 15' all around." When he published his Cape Observations, he added in parentheses, "(N.B. This remark shows that the nebula No. 167 of my former Catalogue is really identical (as there suspected) with III.460.)" Nevertheless, his two objects are entered separately in GC without a note, so it was left to Dreyer to add a query in the NGC description: "[? = h166]". JH and Dreyer were both right -- the two numbers do indeed refer to the same galaxy. RNGC, ESO, and SGC all carried along the equality. ===== NGC 727 = NGC 729, which see. ===== NGC 728 is probably the triple star about 1.5 arcmin north-northwest of JH's position. JH has only one observation of this object which he describes as "A suspected nebula." D'Arrest could not find this object, though he only looked for it once. On a night of relatively poor seeing, the three stars (with a maximum separation of about 20 arcsec, might appear nebulous. A glance at the Sky Survey suggests that N728 might be a reobservation of NGC 718, about 2 minutes west of JH's place (the declinations are the same to within the errors). However, JH first observed N718 in the same sweep (No. 95) in which he found N728. So, the two are unlikely to be the same. ===== NGC 729 = NGC 727. JH describes N729 = h2446 as "eeeF, S, R. RA only rudely taken by a star, being out of the field." He recorded it only once in Sweep 803. Much earlier, however, in Sweep 486, he found another nebula in the area, N727 = h 2445. His description of that reads "F, S, R, bM, 15 arcsec." He then adds (in italics enclosed by square brackets, flagging a note added during the preparation of the Cape Observations for publication), "It is barely possible that this and the next nebula [h2446 = N729] may be identical with Nos. 2440 [= N696] and 2441 [= N698] by a mistaken degree in PD." The relative positions -- the later object in each pair is northeast of the earlier -- as well as the descriptions [N696: "F, S, R, 15 arcsec;" N698: "vvF, S"] support the idea. I suspect that JH also had his note about the "rudely taken" RA in mind when he added his comment several years later. However, the N696/8 pair was found in Sweep 802, and its RA is 4 min 15 sec off the N727/9 pair. This means 1 degree errors in both coordinates, rather than just in Dec as JH points out. Since the position of N729, "rudely taken" as it is, is close to that of N727, and since the two were seen on different nights, it seems more plausible to me that the observations refer to the same object. We can't dismiss JH's comment out of hand, though having both coordinates off by a degree would be unusual in his southern data. ESO's suggestion that N729 is a double star at 01 52 01, -36 03.0 (it is ESO 354-**011) seems less probable to me. JH made many hurried observations of "new" nebulae which have turned out to be identical to objects that he has securely observed during other sweeps. ===== NGC 730 is a star -- or perhaps two different stars. Bigourdan has observations of this on three nights. The discovery observation on 7 Nov 1885, is only an estimate: +11 seconds and -4 arcmin from BD +5 328; there is nothing at that position, though three stars in a line are south and west. On 4 Dec of the same year, he has a single micrometric measurement that falls between the two eastern stars, though slightly closer to the eastern most. Finally, on 30 Nov 1891, his two measurements point exactly at this eastern most -- and brightest -- star of the three. In any event, Bigourdan described the object on the three different nights as 1) having a "Doubtful aspect," 2) being "Strongly stellar; could be a star 13.4 accompanied by nebulosity," and 3) as "Pretty strongly stellar. Could be a small nebula or a nebulous star; however, I'm not certain that there is any nebulosity there." Since even he sounds pretty convinced that his object is stellar, I'm not about to disagree! ===== NGC 731 = NGC 757, which see. ===== NGC 733 is most likely a star. Lord Rosse found a group of five nebulae in the area of NGC 736 (the brightest) on 11 October 1850. His sketch is reasonably accurate, though it is distorted in that it exaggerates the north-south separations between the objects. His micrometric offsets from N736 also point quite accurately to the surrounding objects, including the star which I've taken as N733. The sketch confirms the relative distances in the table between N733, N736, and N740 (the distance between N733 and N736 is about half that between N736 and N740). However, at the same position angle as the star, and just 100 arcsec further from the star which I take as N733, is a faint galaxy. Not otherwise catalogued, this is possibly the object which Lord Rosse meant to measure and sketch. Since the evidence from the sketch and the measurements point directly at the star, though, I'm currently retaining it, and not the galaxy, as N733. But I've nevertheless listed the galaxy, too, with the requisite question marks. ===== NGC 736 is the brightest of a group of five. See NGC 733 and NGC 737 for more. ===== NGC 737 is a line of three stars in the corona of NGC 736. This object was variously seen as a single star and as a nebula by the early observers. Lord Rosse seems to be the first to list it as possibly nebulous, so Dreyer included it in the NGC. Reinmuth found only the three stars at the place of Lord Rosse's nebula (shown in his sketch of the group around N736, and measured micrometrically by him in October 1850), and that is all that I see there on the POSS, too. ===== NGC 739. Ralph Copeland found this object near NGC 750 and N751 on 9 January 1874 using Lord Rosse's 72-inch telescope. He measured the distance and position angle from NGC 750; these point exactly at the galaxy he saw. His measures of three stars around N739 are also exact, giving further confirmation to the identification. In his description of the object, however, he mistakenly has N739 "south-preceding" N750, rather than "north-preceding." When Dreyer reduced a position for the object during preparation of Lord Rosse's observations for publication in 1880, he too made a mistake, placing the position of N739 too far south by 2 arcmin. Thus, the identity with the galaxy has been missed by most of the modern catalogues. ===== NGC 740. See NGC 733. ===== NGC 741 = IC 1751. This, along with NGC 742, was discovered by William Herschel, reobserved by John Herschel, and by Lord Rosse. N741 itself is the brightest in a group of galaxies, and the positions in NGC from the Herschels are good. Furthermore, their descriptions make it clear that all saw the same two galaxies. They did not pick up any of the other objects in the area. This leads to the puzzle of why the brighter of the two was also included in IC. True, it reappeared in Swift's 11th list of "new" nebulae (with one of his typically inaccurate positions), and was reobserved by Herbert Howe at Chamberlin Observatory in Denver. Howe provided a very good micrometric position for it which was adopted by Dreyer for the IC. I suspect that as Dreyer had come to trust Howe's positions and identifications (most of Howe's observations are of known objects), he (Dreyer) didn't bother to check the NGC to see if the galaxy had been seen previously. More recently, the IC number has been attached in CGCG (and in other subsequent lists) to the galaxy (CGCG 413-006) just over an arcminute northwest of N741. This object is indeed brighter than many that Swift found, but his description of a 9th magnitude star "north-preceding" rather than simply "preceding" pretty well establishes the identity. It is further pinned down by Howe's measurement of the distance and direction to the star (actually a double, or perhaps a single star superposed on a galaxy) which points exactly to N741 as the object that he measured. ===== NGC 742. See NGC 741 = IC 1751. ===== NGC 749 is not IC 1740, which see. ===== NGC 750 is the western of a well-known pair of interacting ellipticals (NGC 751 is the other). See NGC 739 for more. ===== NGC 751 is the eastern galaxy in an interacting double (NGC 750 is the other). See NGC 739. ===== NGC 755 = NGC 763, which see. ===== NGC 757 = NGC 731. Both N757 and N763 (which see) were found by Ormond Stone with the Leander McCormick 26-inch, presumeably on the same night, though he doesn't give us the dates in the discovery paper. He has, however, left us a sketch of N763 labeled "Drawn Jany 11.0 1886, sketched Jany 4.5 1885" where the "1885" pretty clearly should be 1886 (there are a couple of other sketches from early 1886 where the dates are given correctly). In any event, this is the western of two relatively bright galaxies in the area, found by WH early in 1785 (the other, as I noted, is NGC 755 = NGC 763). Taking Stone's poor positions into account, the true position difference of the two galaxies pretty well matches the difference in Stone's positions for his two nebulae. In addition, his descriptions match the galaxies very well, particularly his estimated magnitudes and diameters (N757: m = 11.0, D = 0.4 arcmin, gbMN; N763: m = 13.0, D = 1.6 x 0.4 arcmin, PA = 65 deg, gbMN). Even though WH's relative positions are good (though his declinations are about 4 arcmin too far north), JH had trouble with these two objects. Though he claims his Slough observation is for one of his father's objects, and his Cape observation is for the other, neither of his positions is very good. I suspect that both observations refer to the brighter western galaxy, N731. Peters got things sorted out when he micrometrically remeasured the galaxies' positions (see his second Copernicus article and his discussion in AN 2365). Dreyer adopted Peters's good positions for the NGC. Finally, my identification of both N757 and N763 with NGC 755 in the early versions of ESGC is wrong. ===== NGC 760 is a double star found by Copeland with Lord Rosse's 72-inch. His offset for it from NGC 761 is accurately measured, and his position for N761 is in turn well-measured from one of Lalande's stars. Thus, the NGC position is good, and the identification not in doubt. ===== NGC 761. See NGC 760. ===== NGC 763 = NGC 755. This is the southeastern of two pretty bright nebulae, originally found by WH. Fortunately, Stone has left us a sketch of the object which clearly shows it to be N755. Assuming that he found both nebulae the same night, the northwestern (N757) is almost certainly identical to NGC 731. See the discussion of NGC 757 for more. ===== NGC 764 may be the double star at 01 54 38.9, -16 18 22. There are no other candidates for it nearby, and Stone has left no sketch. His description is appropriate for the stars ("eF, vS, iR, gbM") but given his poor positions in the two Leander McCormick lists, its identity as N764 is nothing more than a guess. Curiously, the next object in Stone's list (No. 46) is not in NGC at all. It is described by Stone as "m = 14.0, D = 0.2, R, gbMN" and may simply be a star. But I do not see why Dreyer left it out of the NGC. Other of Stone's objects with similar descriptions are included, so the omission of this one is puzzling. In any event, there is nothing at all in the area that can be clearly identified with this list entry, so perhaps Dreyer had reason to suspect it that he has not told us. ===== NGC 771 = 50 Cassiopeiae is a star. During one sweep, JH said, "I suspect this star to be nebulous." No one since, including JH himself, has been able to see the suspected nebulosity. JH wrote in GC, and Dreyer quoted in NGC, "Retained in the catalogue for future occasional observation. Nothing can be more difficult than to verify or disprove the nebulosity of a considerable star under ordinary atmospheric conditions." A quick look (via SIMBAD) at the astrophysical literature on 50 Cas turned up no observed spectral peculiarities associated with it -- it is a normal A1 V main sequence star. Similarly, a look at the POSS1 reveals no trace of even faint nebulosity around the star. JH may have been misled by a moment of particularly poor seeing. ===== NGC 783 = IC 1765, which see. ===== NGC 785 = IC 1766, which see. ===== NGC 789. See NGC 793. ===== NGC 793. This is one of the few nebulae found by J.G. Lohse, an English amateur astronomer, working at the observatory of another amateur, Mr. Wigglesworth. Unfortunately, the observations never seem to have been published outside the NGC, so Lohse's approximate position and description as recorded in the NGC is all the information that we have. For this particular object, Lohse says only, "Very very faint, between two stars; south-following NGC 789." The only object in the area that fits the description is the faint double about two arcmin southeast of Lohse's place. It is quite a faint object (it is not in GSC), so Mr. Wigglesworth must have had a considerable telescope if Lohse was to have seen it. Some digging in the literature is clearly called for to find the details we need to know about the observatory and its instruments. Without that, my possible identification, while fitting Lohse's description, can only be tentative. ===== NGC 794 = IC 191, which see. ===== NGC 797. See NGC 801. ===== NGC 801. Four other galaxies (NGC 19, 21, 7831, and 7836; see these and NGC 6 for more discussion) discovered earlier in the evening of 20 September 1885 by Lewis Swift share a common offset in Swift's positions from the true positions of +1m 10s in RA and +8m 8s in Dec. If we accept the identity of NGC 801 as given by most catalogues (it is a large edgewise spiral on the northeast edge of Abell 262), then Swift's position for this object is about -19 sec and -0.9 arcmin off, more in line with Swift's usual precision (or lack of it). Swift mentions a "double star close following" which may be the faint double near the southeast end of the spindle. However, both stars are roughly at 17th magnitude on the POSS1; could Swift have seen them? Well, there is no other candidate galaxy near aside from NGC 797, and there are no doubles anywhere near it. So, while the identity of NGC 801 is somewhat uncertain, I will stick with it for now. Incidentally, this galaxy almost got an IC number as well. Searching for NGC 801, Bigourdan rediscovered this object -- it is number 473 in his fifth list of new nebulae. The first four lists were published in time for them to be included in the NGC or the IC's. The fifth list was not. Consequently, it has received almost no attention in the subsequent literature. ===== NGC 804 = IC 1773, which see. ===== NGC 810. Stephan's position, given in both MNRAS and AN, is correct, but the NGC position is 10 seconds west. This is one of the few transcription errors that Dreyer made in his catalogues. The galaxy itself appears to be triple: a close dumbbell is oriented south- west-northeast, and a much fainter companion (or jet?) is just east of the southwestern component. Stephan noted only one object here, and the dumbbell is just barely noticeable on POSS1. ===== NGC 811. The nominal RA, from a single observation by Leavenworth at Leander McCormick, is about 50 seconds too far east. This is not as bad as many of the Leander McCormick nebulae, but is still off enough that I did not recover this for ESGC. The identity is solidified by the star just an arcminute to the south -- Leavenworth mentions it in his description. ===== NGC 814 and 815. These two objects, found by Ormond Stone at Leander McCormick in 1886, have been misidentified or given up as lost by nearly everyone who has tried to find them. However, Stone's sketch, made a few days after their discovery, points to the correct objects a full eight minutes of time east of the recorded (and published) positions. The star field is unmistakeable, and the objects match Stone's descriptions. ===== NGC 815. See NGC 814. ===== NGC 823 = IC 1782, which see. ===== NGC 832 may be a double star. D'Arrest has only one observation of the nova, noting a star 9-10 about 5 arcmin southwest. There is such a star about four arcmin southeast of his position (copied correctly into NGC), but there is nothing at his position nor is there another bright star southwest of it. However, about 4 arcmin northeast of the star is a faint double star. It is 24 seconds east of d'A's position, and just 0.2 arcmin north. It is the sort of object that he could have seen as a "F, S" nebula on even a good night. Lacking any other candidate, this is a possible choice for his nova. ===== NGC 834. This was discovered by WH, who remained its sole observer at the time the NGC was compiled. See NGC 841 for more. ===== NGC 841 is the brightest of three galaxies forming a small group (the others are NGC 834 and 845). Though credited to Stephan (who has a note that it is clearly distinct from the other two, indicating that he saw all three), it was actually found by WH, and observed by d'Arrest. Interestingly, JH saw only the faintest of the three. Though his position is virtually exact for it, he was enough convinced that his object and his father's were the same that he equated them. So, in GC he noted a 1 minute of time difference in the RA's and adopted his own. For N834, he used his father's position since he did not come across it during his own sweeps. Thus, when Stephan observed the trio, he found two GC objects at their correct positions, and a "new" nebula which he measured and included in his list of "novae". Like WH, d'A also saw only the brightest of the three, but made the RA about 13 seconds too large (17 seconds larger than WH's). He, too, assumed that all the observations refered to the same object, so that is how Dreyer put them into NGC. There, Dreyer adopted d'A's RA for NGC 845. The credits for H III 604 and d'A need to be moved from NGC 845 to NGC 841. Aside from that and the adjustment needed for the RA of N845, the NGC is pretty close to being correct. ===== NGC 842 is one of the few Leander McCormick nebulae that is absolutely, positively identified. Not only did Leavenworth observe it three times, he made two sketches of the field. Even so, the nominal RA is 46 seconds of time off the true RA, a good indication of the quality of the LM positions. See NGC 412 for an LM nebula, found and sketched the same night as one of N842's, not so fortunate in its observation. ===== NGC 843 is a triple star very close to d'A's position. He describes the triple as a faint, small, round globular cluster. On a night of less than perfect seeing, that is how the triple must appear. ===== NGC 845. This is the faintest of three galaxies, and the only one seen by JH. Move the WH number (III 604) and the other observer credit to d'A to NGC 841 (which see). That is the brightest of the three. ===== NGC 856. See NGC 863. ===== NGC 859. See NGC 863. ===== NGC 863 and company. The problem here is what to do with the five observations reported by Lewis Swift in his fifth "catalogue" of nebulae, published in Astronomische Nachrichten No. 2763 (Vol. 116, page 33, 1886). All five received NGC numbers: 856, 859, 866, 868, and 885. So, in addition to NGC 863, found by William Herschel (H III 260), there are six numbers in the area and but only three fairly bright galaxies. NGC 863 itself is no problem. The NGC position, from JH's observations, is very good (there is a 30 second error in WH's RA; see Dreyer's note in his edition of WH's Scientific Papers). It obviously pins down the brightest of the galaxies in the area (which, by the way, is Markarian 590). Another of the galaxies is very nearly as bright (Mark 590 and this second galaxy are listed at m_p = 14.0 and 14.4, respectively, in the CGCG), and I'm a bit surprised that the Herschels did not see it. These two are obviously the two brightest that Swift found on the night of 3 October 1886 (N859 and N866, numbers 23 and 24, respectively, in his AN list). The relative positions that he gives them are correct -- "np of 2" and "sf of 2." The declinations are not too bad, but the RA's are out. The third object that he found that night is NGC 868; the position is not too bad, and the description (what there is of it: "eF, pS, R") is appropriate. Swift returned to the area on 31 October of the same year, finding two more objects. The first of these, NGC 856 (the 22nd object in Swift's list), has a good position, and the description ("eF, S, lE, F * close") is again appropriate. The star was measured by both Bigourdan and Howe, and is about a minute of arc east and slightly north of the galaxy. The second object, NGC 885 (number 27), has -- if my conjecture is correct -- the largest positional error of any of Swift's five objects here: five minutes of time in RA. Swift's declination is good. What I believe happened on this night is that Swift simply rediscovered the two brightest galaxies. So, NGC 859 = NGC 856 and NGC 885 = NGC 863. His descriptions of the brightnesses of the two objects, though, is systematically fainter -- "eF" vs. "pF" for the fainter of the two, and "vF" vs. "pF" for the brighter -- than on his earlier night's observations. This suggests to me that the sky was not as good on this second night as on the first, or that Swift was then simply noting nebulae as fainter. The right ascension problem for NGC 885 is, I believe, one of Swift's large random errors that are littered throughout his lists. For example, in the same list, NGC 1689 (found 22 October 1886) is also five minutes out, being = NGC 1667. Another example: NGC 1037, also in the same list, has as a part of its description "[GC] 581 in field." This means that GC 581 = NGC 1032 must be within 16 arcminutes of Swift's object (Swift was using an eyepiece that had a field diameter of 32 arcmin), but his declination for NGC 1037 is 2 deg 49.7 arcmin different from NGC 1032's declination! In summary, then, I think that my original assignments of the NGC numbers are probably correct, though we do not have the evidence to be absolutely sure. The observations reported by Herbert Howe in M.N. 68, 356, 1898, and 69, 29, 1900, support my position: he could not find NGC 859, NGC 866, and NGC 885, though he reports observing NGC 856, NGC 863, and NGC 868. Bigourdan also has observations of only three objects here, though he assigns a different number to the faintest: NGC 859 rather than NGC 868. I've yet to sort out his data completely, however. ===== NGC 866. See NGC 863. ===== NGC 868. See NGC 863. ===== NGC 874. Though Muller's position is off, his description is exact, including the position angle of the galaxy and the position angle and distance of the neighboring star. The RC3 is correct in this case. ===== NGC 885. See NGC 863. ===== NGC 886. Thanks to a typo ("6" for "5"), this appeared in an earlier unpublished errata list of mine as being equal to NGC 863. It's not, of course. It is actually a scattered cluster of about 20-30 stars centered near JH's position. It's obvious on the POSS; nevertheless, RNGC chose to call it "non-existent." See Brent's Monograph on the "non-existent" clusters for more. ===== NGC 896. Though WH noted the polar distance as uncertain, his position is only 4 arcmin south of the nebula, a bright knot in a huge HII ring (or possibly a supernova remnant). ===== NGC 900. See NGC 901. ===== NGC 901 is just 2.8 arcmin nnf NGC 900, and the NGC position (from Marth, who found the pair) is very close to the true position. Nevertheless, this has not prevented MCG and RNGC from getting the identification wrong. MCG calls N900 "N901," and RNGC claims N901 to be non-existent (though it does get N900 right). In spite of this, the identifications of the two objects are clear. ===== NGC 917. JH's position is exactly 20 arcmin too far north in declination. His description, "vF, S, R; forms a semicircle with four stars" from a single observation in Sweep 106 is a prefect match for UGC 1890 and four nearby field stars. Lord Rosse looked at the area of JH's published position, but saw only several very faint stars. There are two double stars about an arcminute south of JH's place. These are very faint; while they might have been visible in the 72-inch, it's very unlikely that JH could have seen them with the 20-foot reflector. In any case, UGC 1890 is almost certainly the object he saw. The galaxy and the nearby stars match his description exactly. ===== NGC 930 is lost. Copeland found it just an arcminute northwest of NGC 932 with Lord Rosse's 72-inch. He saw it only one night, and made a micrometric measurement of it with respect to the nucleus of NGC 932. Two stars that he also measured (on three other nights as well) are just where he places them. But there is no trace of his nebula. There is a faint knot (or superposed companion) in the corona of N932, but it is only about 35 arcsec northeast of the nucleus. While Copeland might have been able to see this, there is no way to make his measurement fit. There are no other likely galaxies nearby that he might have seen, either -- aside from NGC 938 about 10 arcmin east-southeast which he, in fact, did see. So, NGC 930 is a mystery. The modern catalogues, by the way, are wrong in adopting that number for the galaxy that is here. Dreyer clearly meant NGC 932 to apply to WH's object. ===== NGC 932 is the correct number to apply to WH's nebula, not NGC 930 (which is lost; see its note for more) as most modern catalogues do. ===== NGC 952. Stephan has misidentified his comparison star. My first suspicion was that he switched the comparison stars for this and for NGC 983 (which see; briefly, when 15 Triangulum is used as the comparsion star for N983, Stephan's position exactly matches that for NGC 1002). The position he lists for the N983 star, however -- "786 B.A.C." = 15 Tri -- has no bright star near it (that position is RA = 02h 24m 11.23s, NPD = 58d 59m 27.6s, for 1870). Furthermore, he lists different NPD's for the nebula in the two papers in which he published his third list: in MN, the NPD is given as 59 49 52.1; while in AN, the NPD is 55 49 52.1. There is nothing in either position. The next thing to try is to look for galaxies in the area that are at the offset inferred from Stephan's published positions. These are -4m 25.61s in RA, and +2m 58.0s in Dec. A cursory scan of the relevant areas didn't turn up any reasonable candidates, but I suspect that a careful inspection of the fields northwest of the stars between 5 and 9 in Triangulum would eventually reveal Stephan's object. Until then, however, N952 is unfortunately "Not found." ===== NGC 961 = NGC 1051 = IC 249. Stone's description matches Stephan's in every respect, but his (Stone's) RA is just 10 minutes of time off, an obvious digit error. See IC 249 for more on that story. ===== NGC 963 = IC 1808. Leavenworth's position, like many of his, is too far east by over a minute of time. But his declination and description, like many of his, are about right. Since he left us no sketch of the field, we have to depend on just the declination and description, but I have little doubt that they refer to IC 1808. Javelle rediscovered the galaxy about a decade after Leavenworth saw it; the position he measured at Nice -- and therefore the IC2 position -- is correct. ===== NGC 964 = IC 1814, which see. ===== NGC 970. See NGC 971. ===== NGC 971 is a star. Lord Rosse's diagram and micrometric measurements with respect to NGC 970 point exactly to the star. Thus, though some have taken the faint companion of NGC 970 as NGC 971, this is incorrect. ===== NGC 980 and NGC 982. William Herschel found these two nebulae, but did not measure individual positions; his position is "between them." Thus, it is John Herschel's positions that are used in the GC and NGC. Unfortunately, JH did not carry over into the GC his uncertainty in the position of H III 572 = h 235; this is noted in his 1833 catalogue (RA and NPD): "02 24 40.5:, 49 55 25:". The other nebula, H III 573 = h 235 carries no such uncertainty symbols: "02 24 44.8, 49 52 39." If this latter position is precessed to 1950, it agrees closely with those measured by Bigourdan and by Dressel and Condon for "NGC 980." Dressel and Condon, of course, simply copied the designation from UGC. Bigourdan gives no reason for his identifications, simply noting that "NGC 982" is fainter than "NGC 980." The MCG, however, calls this southeastern object "NGC 982," apparently preferring to believe that the NGC declination is incorrect rather than the right ascension. Who's right? Let's look back at John Herschel's observations since that is where the incorrect position comes from. If we precess his uncertain position for the western object, we find that the RA but not the declination agrees with that from the modern observations. So, the two galaxies are oriented northwest- southeast on the sky, but the NGC positions (from Sir John) say southwest- northeast. Indeed, the GC and NGC descriptions state this orientation explicitly. However, Dreyer has a note in the NGC repeating part of Sir John's original description for h 235: "Dist. 3 arcmin; pos from the next one = 337.0 deg," and adding, "Is the p one perhaps the most northern? H says nothing about their relative position; not observed by d'A." John Herschel's note about the position angle between the two being 337 deg is the vital clue here, since it suggests that the nw/se orientation is correct. Let's now take the position of h 236 as correct -- as indeed it is within the known statistical errors of Sir John's observations (about 2 arcmin). Now, assume that Sir John measured the position of h 235 with respect to h 236, perhaps by measuring the distance and position angle that he quotes. This would then imply that he made an error in calculating the offset in declination. If this is true, then changing the sign of the declination offset (2 arcmin 46 arcsec) would put the declination exactly on the true declination: +40 42.5 for 1950 (NPD = 49 49 53 for 1830). So, here is another case where the position for a nebula was measured with respect to another nearby nebula, which in turn was referred to the "fundamental" reference system (see the note on NGC 2424 and 2427 for another instance of this). So, I think that the declination of NGC 980 is out by 5.5 arcmin, that the UGC identifications are switched, and that the MCG got them right. Another minor mystery: in the GC, JH has the distance as "210 arcsec" rather than "3 arcmin". This makes his observation closer to the true distance on the sky. I suspect that it comes from his original observing records -- but why didn't he use it in his 1833 list? ===== NGC 982. See NGC 980. ===== NGC 983 = NGC 1002. Stephan misidentified his comparison star, a mistake caught by the editor of the Monthly Notices and given a footnote in Stephan's third list (the editor, too, made a mistake: for "... R.A. 02h 17m 52.66s ..." read "... R.A. 02h 27m 52.66s ..."). When the right star, 15 Triangulum, is used, Stephan's micrometrically measured position falls exactly on NGC 1002. The error is also mentioned in Esmiol's 1916 re-reduction of Stephan's observations. ===== NGC 996. See IC 240. ===== NGC 1002 = NGC 983, which see. ===== NGC 1027 is probably also = IC 1824, which see. ===== NGC 1032. See NGC 1037. ===== NGC 1036 = IC 1828, which see. ===== NGC 1037. Swift found this on the night of 29 Sept 1886, and gives an 1885.0 position of 02 34 08 -02 13 47, describing it as "eeeF; vS; vE; eee diff; [GC] 581 [NGC 1032] in field" in his 5th list of new nebulae. Something is obviously wrong since NGC 1032 is at 02 33 29 +00 35.9 (1885) and probably has no other galaxies bright enough for Swift to have seen within 16 arcmin of it (he used an eyepiece that gave a field of 32 arcmin, so if N1032 is "in field," it must have been within 16 arcmin, assuming that N1037 was centered). In addition, Swift's quoted declination is 2 deg 49.7 min south of NGC 1032. I don't see any obvious typos, so I've had to conclude "not found" for N1037. After I wrote the preceding paragraph, I learned that Wolfgang Steinicke (and others) have suggested that NGC 1037 is actually UGC 2119, two minutes of time preceding Swift's position, and 6.7 arcmin south. This is certainly possible as there are several other larger RA errors in Swift's 5th list. However, this still leaves the problem of NGC 1032 being nearly 3 degrees to the north. Looking at the field, two other possibilities suggest themselves. First, Swift may have picked up UGC 2106 which is in the same field as UGC 2119. This would suggest that he somehow thought that U2119 was NGC 1032. Secondly, if he had NGC 1032 correctly identified, then it is just barely possible that he might have also seen the very faint galaxy about 4 arcmin northwest. This is quite flattened, and might be visible in a 16-inch under very good skies. However, there are brighter stars near it -- in particular, a star is less than an arcminute to the northeast. Why didn't Swift mention any of these? This hypothesis also requires a large error in position (50 seconds in RA and 2 deg 53 min in Dec). All in all, I'm not convinced by any of these hypotheses, so shall stick with "Not found." ===== NGC 1040 = NGC 1053. Here is a peculiar case where Lewis Swift's position is closer to the galaxy than Edouard Stephan's! However, if Stephan's position is made exactly one minute of time larger, then it agrees with the GSC position to within 5 arcsec. Stephan apparently made a simple error in subtracting the RA offset of the galaxy from the comparison star as the position he lists for the star is correctly precessed from the BD. However -- another error -- he recorded the star's BD number as +40 677 in both publications of his third list: the correct number is +40 577. We all have bad days. The identity with NGC 1053, by the way, was suggested by Reinmuth, and Swift's position and description are good. ===== NGC 1051 = NGC 961 = IC 249. See NGC 961 and IC 249 for the stories. ===== NGC 1053 = NGC 1040, which see. ===== NGC 1057 is noted as double in the NGC. It was seen this way several times by Lord Rosse and his observers. It is actually an S0^+ galaxy with a double star superposed just northwest. The position in the GSC for N1057 does not include the double star. ===== NGC 1059 may be the double star about an arcmin east of JH's position. He recorded the object only once, and then described it as "eF; hardly sure." Dreyer noted that this object was found neither by d'Arrest nor by Burnham. The suggestion that N1059 is the double comes from Reinmuth. ===== NGC 1061. See NGC 1062. ===== NGC 1062 is a star found by Copeland in the NGC 1061 group (actually in the core of an extended cluster of galaxies) with Lord Rosse's 72-inch "Leviathan." The offsets from NGC 1061 measured by him fall precisely on a faint star, so the identity is certain. The RNGC and PGC identification of NGC 1062 with a low surface brightness spindle near NGC 1066 and 1067 is incorrect. Dreyer reduced positions for the objects in this group from the 72-inch micrometer measurements assuming a position for the nearby comparison star. It was these positions that he used in the NGC. Comparison with positions in the GSC show that Dreyer's position for the star is off by about 1.8 seconds in RA and 21 arcsec in declination. Taking these offsets into account, Copeland's measured position for NGC 1062 becomes 02 40 23.6, +32 15 00 (1950.0). ===== NGC 1066. See NGC 1062. ===== NGC 1067. See NGC 1062. ===== NGC 1072 = IC 1837, which see. ===== NGC 1105 = IC 1840 = MCG -03-08-004. My previous decision to list two galaxies under the number "NGC 1105" was misguided. After reviewing the evidence, I've decided to go with historical precedent and let Leavenworth's sketch -- which clearly shows that N1105 = I1840 -- provide the final word. However, for those still interested, here is the full story. The NGC galaxy was found in 1885 by Leavenworth with the 26-inch refractor at Leander McCormick Observatory. As with most of the faint nebulae discovered visually with this telescope, the discovery position is crude, especially in RA. Fortunately, Leavenworth has left us a sketch that shows conclusively that his object is identical to IC 1840. The four stars to the west of the galaxy -- looking like the top four stars in the cross of Cygnus -- are all shown in the sketch along with the galaxy. The second candidate comes from Herbert Howe. Working with the 20-inch refractor at Chamberlain Observatory just outside of Denver, he could not find anything at the position given by Leavenworth. However, "... four minutes following was a very small nebula, about equal in brightness to a star of magnitude 13. As Leavenworth observed his nebula only once, and took its place roughly, the two may be identical." Dreyer took Howe's "may be identical" as "indeed are identical" and put Howe's RA in the IC2 Notes with only the qualification, "... (nothing in the place given by L.)." So, we have two galaxies for one NGC number (where is Solomon when we need him?!). My previous solution added "e" and "w" suffixes to the NGC number for the two different galaxies. Not very satisfactory for the purist, I'm afraid, but it did give some credit to each of the observers, and attempted to deal with Dreyer's Note in IC2. As I've said, however, my current sensibilities are offended by this Solomaic decision, so I've reverted to using historical precedent and ignoring Dreyer's Note. For what it's worth, the galaxy that Howe found is now called MCG -03-08-036. ===== NGC 1109 (= IC 1846?), 1111, 1112, 1113, 1115, 1116, 1117, and 1127. Of these eight nebulae, all found on a single night in 1863 by Albert Marth with William Lassell's 48-inch reflector, only three -- N1115, 16, and 27 -- can be readily identified. All but one of the others can be force-fit to galaxies in area, but only by changing RA offsets from galaxy to galaxy. The declinations are pretty good, assuming that the RA offsets noted below are in fact leading us to the correct objects. All we have here to help decypher the field are Marth's positions -- five of them clearly wrong -- and descriptions -- all of them sparce. Here are my tentative conclusions, with Marth's data on the first line (my comments follow in parentheses), and the modern positions (for B1950.0) on the second: NGC RA (1950.0) Dec Description and comments 1109 02 46 55 +13 02.7 vF (Marth's RA 2.0 min off?) 02 44 59.45 +13 02 50.0 = IC 1846 = UGC 02265 = CGCG 440-008 1111 02 46 59 +13 01.6 F, vS, stell (Marth's RA 1.0 min off?) 02 45 55.0 +13 03 07 = IC 1850. Faint comp 0.4 arcmin s. 1112 02 47 16 +13 00.6 F, pS (Marth's RA 1.0 min off?) 02 46 16.20 +13 00 59.6 = IC 1852 = UGC 02293 = CGCG 440-015 1113 02 47 24 +13 05.6 vF (Marth's position on * 10). 02 47 20.76 +13 07 16.0 = * 15. 1115 02 47 41 +13 02.6 vF 02 47 41.11 +13 03 36.5 = CGCG 440-020 1116 02 47 51 +13 07.6 vF 02 47 51.40 +13 07 44.3 = UGC 02326 = CGCG 440-021 1117 02 47 59 +12 57.6 Close to a small * (RA 30 sec off? Is the comp 0.4 arcmin n the "small *"?) 02 48 28.88 +12 58 48.1 = CGCG 440-022s = UGC 02337s 1127 02 50 07 +13 02.4 vF 02 50 07.5 +13 03 10 = CGCG 440-024 = UGC 02356 The RA offsets strike me as rather ad hoc, so these are tentative conclusions. ===== NGC 1111 may be IC 1850. See NGC 1109 for a discussion. ===== NGC 1112 may be IC 1852. See NGC 1109 for a discussion. ===== NGC 1113. See NGC 1109. ===== NGC 1115. See NGC 1109. ===== NGC 1116. See NGC 1109. ===== NGC 1117. See NGC 1109. ===== NGC 1127. See NGC 1109. ===== NGC 1128 is the dumbbell galaxy in the center of Abell 400. Swift's RA is five minutes too small, but his comment about two pretty faint stars close west is accurate. Several objects found by Swift in October of 1886 have the same 5 minute problem. I wonder if the printed RA of a star that he commonly used then to calibrate his setting circles had a typographical error. ===== NGC 1129. See NGC 1130. ===== NGC 1130 and 1131. Both of these were discovered by Lord Rosse (or by his observer) while he was examining NGC 1129. The Parsonstown observers looked at NGC 1129 three times, noting the superposed object to the southwest all three times (it was finally taken as a star or a double star, so did not receive an NGC number. It is VV85, and may be a line of three galaxies, or two galaxies plus a star). Two other "knots," seen only during the final observation, did receive NGC numbers. While Lord Rosse did not yet have a micrometer to measure accurate offsets, the estimates he gives (2 minutes north for the first, and 2 minutes east and "a little south" for the second) are just good enough to tentatively identify the objects. Dreyer calculated the NGC positions from the offsets and the position for NGC 1129. Neither identity is certain. While there is a brighter CGCG galaxy a four or five arcmin on further southeast of N1131, Lord Rosse would have had to make a mistake of five arcmin in his estimated offset; this is unlikely. The situation for N1130 is even less sure. There is no object directly north of N1129. Of the two possiblities, CGCG 540-004 1.5 arcmin northwest is the more likely identification. Not only is the galaxy brighter than the one about two arcmin northeast, there is a star superposed just southwest that would probably have enhanced the visibility of the CGCG object. Assuming these identifications, CGCG and UGC got the correct objects, but MCG did not (not even N1129!). The accurate position measured at Bologna for CGCG 540-007 = NGC 1131 is also for the wrong object; they got a faint spiral that may be in the background of the group. ===== NGC 1131. See NGC 1130. ===== NGC 1136. RC3 and ESO give the correct position. RC2 and RNGC are wrong. ===== NGC 1141 = NGC 1143, and NGC 1142 = NGC 1144. This is a well-known interacting pair of galaxies, perhaps a collision. Marth's description for N1141 and N1142 fits, and his positions are just 30 arcminutes off. He apparently was having an off night when he found this pair: of the ten objects that he discovered on that night in early October 1864, five have large position errors, and another is a star. The discussion of NGC 1474 has more details. ===== NGC 1142 = NGC 1144. See NGC 1141. ===== NGC 1143 = NGC 1141, which see. ===== NGC 1144 = NGC 1142. See NGC 1141. ===== NGC 1147 is probably lost. There is no object within five degrees of the nominal position that matches Muller's description (m = 15.0, Dxd = 0.4x0.2, extended 180 deg; star 9.5 mag following 25 sec, north 1 arcmin). I had the thought during preparation of ESGC that it might be identical with NGC 1157, a few degrees south, but there is no bright star in the right direction from that galaxy. ===== NGC 1157 is probably not NGC 1147, which see. ===== NGC 1170 may have been the tail of a comet. It was found by C.S. Pierce at Harvard on the last day of 1869, and was verified by Joseph Winlock. The description in Harvard Annals, Vol. 13, Part 1, reads, "J.W. and C.S.P. independently think the sky generally bright f and a little n of the comet for 14' or more (several fields according to C.S.P.). [The approximate place in Table VIII results from comparison with the comet.]" The comment in square brackets is from the author of the paper, probably J.W. In Table VIII, the only information is the position 02 54 10, +26 31 (1860), and the Remark, "Comet 1869 III p neb 2m 31s, a little s." I haven't yet done the library work to know if the comet's tail stretched off to the northeast from the head. But the description makes it possible that this is the correct explanation for this NGC entry. ===== NGC 1171. See NGC 1197. ===== NGC 1173. This is one of four objects (the others are NGC 1176, 78, and 83; N1176 has the story) that Bigourdan found scattered around NGC 1175 in December of 1884. Bigourdan's published north polar distances for the four are all one degree too large. The other three are stars, but this one is a mystery at the moment. I suspect that Bigourdan has misidentified his comparison star, but will have to look around the field some more for another that he might have used instead of the one he claims to have used. Whatever the case, there is nothing in Bigourdan's position, which comes from two accordant measurements on 17 December. About 40 arcsec to the southwest is a faint double star that he probably could not have seen (based on the fact that he had difficulty with NGC 1177). He adds a curious note to his description: "At the end of the measurements, I could see the object very well: the sky, very clear at just that moment, had been a little unsettled." This is what leads me to believe that he has misidentified his star field. ===== NGC 1174 = NGC 1186. Swift's position for N1174 is just 1 minute of time off. Otherwise, his description is a good match for NGC 1186, including the bright double star about 5 arcmin northwest: it does indeed point to the galaxy. Dreyer corrects the relative position of the double star and the galaxy in a note in IC1 where he also repeats Spitaler's suggestion that N1174 and N1186 are identical -- but for a different reason. See N1186 for that story. Coincidentally, Swift's incorrect position for N1174 lies near IC 1872, a group of 3-4 stars exactly at Bidschof's micrometric position (it was also independently found by Bigourdan, but his observation was published too late to be included in the second IC). Somehow, these two numbers have avoided being equated over the years. Even RNGC simply called N1174 "Not found." ===== NGC 1175. See NGC 1176 and NGC 1177. ===== NGC 1176, 1178, and 1183 are all stars in the vicinity of NGC 1175. Bigourdan's published north polar distances are all 1 deg too large, but he has correctly identified his comparison stars. Re-reducing his positions puts them directly on top of faint stars in the field. Another object found at the same time (N1173, which see) is apparently lost, or is the victim of a misidentified comparison star. Also, Bigourdan had trouble seeing N1175's one real companion galaxy, NGC 1177 = IC 281. Even though his measurements of N1175 itself are good, this was obviously not a well-seen field for him. ===== NGC 1177 = IC 281. N1177 was found by Lord Rosse, and clearly measured by him with respect to N1175. The NGC position is good, and LdR also mentions the brighter star 32 arcsec northeast of N1177. However, this has not prevented Swift from claiming the galaxy as one of his discoveries, so it has an IC number as well as its original NGC number. Bigourdan claimed to have found four "novae" in the field (N1173, 76, 78, and 83; see N1173 and N1176 for more), but three are clearly stars (the fourth, N1173, may be too, but I wonder if Bigourdan misidentified his comparison star for it; see N1173 for more). In spite of his four "discoveries," Bigourdan had trouble seeing N1177. He observed N1175 on two nights, could not find N1177 on the first of those, and saw it only vaguely on the second, commenting that the light of the brighter star mentioned by LdR prevented him from measuring it. ===== NGC 1178 is a star. See NGC 1176 for the discussion. ===== NGC 1183 is a star. See NGC 1176 for the discussion. ===== NGC 1186 = NGC 1174 (which see for more). In the NGC, Dreyer notes that both Lord Rosse and d'Arrest looked for N1186 in vain. However, it was seen and consistently described by both WH and JH at much the same position. Until Spitaler's observation appeared (in AN 3030, which I've not seen), Dreyer must have been puzzled by this as both LdR and d'A were fine observers. The galaxy has a pretty low surface brightness, and with at least two 14th mag stars superposed, it would have been rather difficult to see, especially in long-focus telescopes. However, there is no doubt that both Herschels saw it, and the identity is not in question. Swift's RA for N1174 is just 1 minute off, and his description of the double star 5 arcmin northwest clinches that identification, too. ===== NGC 1197. Well, I can't find this one, either. There is nothing at Swift's position, and his description -- "pF, cE, pS; sev vF sts nr" -- could fit any of a dozen galaxies within a few degrees in any direction. He apparently found only one other galaxy on the same night (NGC 1171), and that is close to his nominal position. So, searching for a systematic offset won't help. A search of the surrounding POSS1 fields turns up no digit errors in the ten's places of RA and Dec that would nail an appropriate object. So, this object may well be lost. Wolfgang's identification, by the way, is a star about an arcminute west of Swift's position. Swift's description pretty well rules out this ID. ===== NGC 1198 = IC 282, which see. ===== NGC 1202 is positively identified by the wide double star at PA = 45 deg, d = 4 arcmin, mentioned in Stone's description. The galaxy is not, by the way, identical to IC 286 (which see) -- Bigourdan "observed" them on the same night in December of 1890. ===== NGC 1212 = IC 1883. As with NGC 1213, Swift found this galaxy in October of 1884, and made an error in estimating its RA. Thus Barnard thought it a nova when he found it sometime later. Barnard's observation, like many others of his in IC2, is unpublished -- he apparently sent it directly to Dreyer. In this case, this object is the first of a group of five near Algol that appear in IC2 (the others are I1884 = I290, and I1887 = I292, I1888 = I293, and I1889 = I294; see IC 290 for notes on them). Swift explicitly notes the proximity to Algol in his notes for several of the galaxies. As I mentioned, his positions are not good, so misled Barnard into believing that all five galaxies were "novae" when all, in fact, are included in NGC or IC1. Thus, all have IC2 numbers, too. In this case, Algol is west-northwest by several arcmin. Swift's galaxy can be identified by his note "Right angled with 2 sts." The figure actually looks more like an equilateral triangle, but is close enough to provide strong support for this object as being the one that Swift saw. ===== NGC 1213 = IC 1881. Swift found NGC 1213 in October of 1884, soon after he began observing with the 16-inch refractor at Warner Observatory in Rochester, New York. As was to be his practice for the next 14-15 years, he "measured" the position of his "nova" by centering it in the eyepiece of his telescope, then reading the setting circles. This led to many mistakes in his positions. Swift's RA of this object is far enough off that Bigourdan thought it was probably also a "nova" when he rediscovered it in January of 1891 (the object that Bigourdan labels "NGC 1213" is a star). Though Bigourdan's observations of the galaxy are especially poor because of its low surface brightness, it is almost certainly the same object that Swift saw. Both of their descriptions are apt (including Swift's "F * close n"), and Bigourdan suggests in his that the galaxy might be NGC 1213. ===== NGC 1233. Is NGC 1235 (which see) possibly equal to this? ===== NGC 1235. Is this perhaps = NGC 1233? Found by Swift on one of his more productive nights, N1235 is one of 13 nebulae observed on 21 Oct 1886. Aside from NGC 58 (which see) which has a 1 minute error in RA, the other 12 objects have no significant systematic offsets in their true positions from Swift's discovery positions. If N1235 is indeed N1233, then it would be the lone exception with a 23.6 arcmin error in Dec. So, though the description (what there is of it) fits, I'm not comfortable with this identity, and consider it provisional at best. ===== NGC 1237 is most likely the double star about 30 seconds west, and a minute south, of Muller's position. It fits his description, including the position angle, and Muller himself notes "**?" ===== NGC 1240 is probably the double star 34 sec east and 3.7 arcmin south of WH's position. His description, from one observation on 12 Sept 1784 ("Suspected, 240 left a doubt; eF and vS, most probably 2 close stars; between 2 stars," quoted by Dreyer in the 1912 Papers collection) fits perfectly, and there is nothing else in the area that matches. The position difference is not unexpectedly large for WH's early observations. ===== NGC 1241. See NGC 1243. ===== NGC 1242. See NGC 1243. ===== NGC 1243 is a double star first seen by JH. There are two nebulae here, N1241 and N1242, both discovered by WH (though nearly two years apart). JH saw the brighter (N1241), but thought his father's description of the fainter's position ("... about 1 arcmin north-following II 286 [N1241]") wrong -- it isn't, but JH never saw the fainter (N1242). Curiously, neither did d'A who picked up the same two objects as JH, N1241 and the double star. The first observation at Birr turned up both of WH's nebulae, but not JH's double star, so the sketch made that night shows only the two nebulae and some field stars. JH thought that the orientation of the sketch must be wrong since it did not agree with his own observation. He made a comment to that effect in the note in GC, which certainly confused the situation. It was not until Dreyer looked at the field in November 1877 with the 72-inch that all three objects were observed together for the first time. Dreyer's measurements pinpoint all three, but he still describes N1243 as a nebula, making it the second brightest of the three. His description and sketch from that night is an accurate repesentation of the field -- except that he still believes N1243 to be nebulous. ===== NGC 1251 is a double star. It is so close to Coolidge's position that Reinmuth had no trouble identifying it as the NGC object. This is one of many asterisms in the list of "nebulae" found visually at Harvard in the late 1850s. ===== NGC 1252 is a sparce cluster (or random scattering of stars) 20 arcmin north of JH's position. His description (Star 8m, the chief of a cluster of 18 or 20 stars) fits perfectly, and his NPD for the star is very close to exactly 20 arcmin too large. This suggests a simple digit error in his NPD. ===== NGC 1257 is a double star. Bigourdan saw this object on two nights, but only estimated its position once. Since the BD position of his comparison star is also an estimate (and is actually closer to a slightly fainter star about 1.7 arcmin east-southeast), the NGC position is off. Consequently, the number N1257 has been mistakenly assigned to CGCG 540-073 in RNGC, PGC, and RC3. Bigourdan's estimated position, however, falls within an arcminute of the double, and he notes the two neighboring stars in his description. The identity is secure. ===== NGC 1264 is UGC 2643. Bigourdan's position is within 5 arcsec of the GSC position, so there is no doubt about the identification. RNGC has mistakenly put the number N1264 on CGCG 540-085, which is about 5 arcmin southwest of the real NGC 1264. ===== NGC 1272. See NGC 1279. ===== NGC 1275 is the brightest galaxy in the Perseus Cluster and a strong radio source, as well as a fascinating object in other wavelengths. See NGC 1279. ===== NGC 1278 = IC 1907, which see. ===== NGC 1279 is accurately located by Lord Rosse's micrometric offsets from his reference star which is directly between NGC 1272 and NGC 1275. It is certainly not the fainter galaxy superposed on the corona of NGC 1275 as suggested by LEDA. ===== NGC 1289 = IC 314, which see. ===== NGC 1312. The RC3 is wrong in equating this with UGC 2711. This is actually a double star, as are many of the first "nebulae" found at Harvard by Bond and his colleagues. The positions of these are generally very good, and their descriptions and those of the surrounding fields make clear just what the early observers were seeing. ===== NGC 1327. This is L.M. 105, found by Ormond Stone with the 26-inch refractor at the Leander McCormick Observatory in Virginia. He describes it simply as "vS, neb?" and assigns a magnitude of 16.3. His position is typically uncertain with nothing resembling his description nearby. There is a faint galaxy (MCG -04-09-008) 0.6 minutes of time east of his RA and at the correct declination. Since the early Leander McCormick positions, not just Stone's, tend to be too far west, this object is a logical candidate. However, Delisle Stewart examined a Bruce reflector plate taken at Harvard's Arequipa station in Peru, and noticed a faint triple star near Stone's place. ESO has suggested that the wide triple about 2.5 arcmin north of Stone's place is Stewart's object. Since the stars in the triple are 13th and 14th magnitude, and since they are spread out along a line nearly an arcminute long, I doubt that they would appear as a "vS" nebula of the 16th magnitude in the 26-inch, even on a night of spectacularly bad seeing. Stewart created some additional confusion by simply precessing Stone's crude position to equinox 1900. This, together with his comment in Harvard Annals 60, "3 vF sts, close together, no neb," summarized by Dreyer in the IC2 Notes, would lead us to believe that the triple is at Stone's position. All of this makes me unhappy with Stewart's hypothesis, but I've nevertheless retained the triple in the main table as a possibility for N1327. ===== NGC 1330 is a group of five or six stars -- probably with several more fainter involved -- exactly located by Stephan's micrometric position. Efforts to identify it with galaxies in the area are futile. ===== NGC 1331 = IC 324, which see. ===== NGC 1333. Though there is no question about the identity of this nebula, its early observations with small telescopes were contradictory enough to lead to suggestions that it might be variable. The note in Auwers's 1862 appendix to WH's catalogue makes it clear that Tuttle's observation of 1859 has the directions of the field inverted. This probably contributed to the perception of variability. Interestingly, part of the object seems to be a collapsing protostar (see Sky and Telescope, January 1997, pages 15 and 16 for the story). Is it thus possible that N1333 really is variable? Depending on the density, position, and orientation of dust clouds around the protostar, and the possibly changing intensity of the star itself, variability from our point of view is not out of the question. This is apparently the cause of the variability of the nebulae around T Tauri (NGC 1554 and NGC 1555, which see), and perhaps also explains the variability of NGC 2261 (also which see). ===== NGC 1334. See IC 323. ===== NGC 1378 is a double star found by Julius Schmidt with a 6-foot (focal length) refractor during his survey of the Fornax Cluster area from Athens in the early 1870s. His position is off in RA by about 3 seconds of time, but the double is the only object in the area that he might have picked up. His "description" reads "F. new" (in the original German, "S. neu") so it is not much help. The Mt. Wilson and Helwan observers came to the same conclusion, so RNGC has the same identity. For SGC, I consulted Schmidt's paper in AN 2097, and saw no reason to differ with the earlier concensus. ===== NGC 1384. There is a faint double star very close to Marth's position, though the brightest galaxy in a scattered cluster about 2 arcmin south fits Marth's description ("Nebulous star 13m") very well -- it has a star superposed about 5 arcsec southwest of the nucleus. The galaxy/star pair are also considerably brighter than the double star, and are within Marth's usual error circle. So, while it's possible that the double is Marth's object, it is much more likely to be the galaxy with the superposed star. ===== NGC 1392 was found by Swift on 13 February 1887 about 5 arcmin north of a brighter "nebula" which Swift took to be Comet 1887-I three degrees south of its predicted position. There is nothing in either of the places given by Swift in his sixth list for either object. Nor is there anything three degrees north where the comet was supposed to have appeared that night. However, the center of the Fornax cluster is one and a half degrees north. I think it's likely that Swift saw two of the galaxies there, but choosing two out of the 15-20 that he could have seen would be pure guesswork. Similarly, Lauberts's guess in ESO (ESO 358-G040) is based on a reliance on the 1 degree difference in declination more than it is on the likelihood that Swift actually saw the object: ESO 358-G040 has a total visual magnitude around 16.2, likely putting it beyond Swift's limit, especially given the far southern declination. A third possibility is raised by Kreutz in a note following Swift's list in AN. Kreutz notes that the offset of Swift's position from that predicted for the comet by Finlay is 38 minutes east, and 4 degrees 1 arcminute south. However, searching at Finlay's place for a double nebula turned up nothing, either. Other objects found by Swift on the same night include NGC 1797 and NGC 1799, both very near Swift's positions for them; and NGC 2589, like NGC 1392, not found at Swift's position (see Herbert Howe's note in MN 61, 29, 1900, copied into the IC2 Notes). In the end, NGC 1392 is another of Swift's nebulae "not found." ===== NGC 1396. The galaxy chosen by me for SGC is the only reasonably match to the original position by Schmidt in his short paper on the Fornax Cluster. Unfortunately, Schmidt's table in that paper has several errors, some perhaps typos, some perhaps observational. In any event, given the size of his telescope, and the problems in his table, the SGC galaxy is as good a match to Schmidt's observation as I can make. ===== NGC 1408 is another of the new "nebulae" found by Schmidt during his survey of the Fornax Cluster area. There is nothing at his position, but during my sweep across the area for SGC, I noted two double stars nearby. The fainter and wider double is northwest of Schmidt's position, and the brighter but closer pair is southeast. Though I've listed both in the main table, with question marks, neither seems particularly likely to me to be mistaken for a nebula. This should be checked at the eyepiece, though. In any event, N1408 is currently unidentified. See NGC 1378 and NGC 1396 for more on Schmidt's Fornax Cluster work. ===== NGC 1411 may also be IC 1943, which see. ===== NGC 1412 = IC 1981. This is the only galaxy near Herschel's position that he could have seen. As with NGC 324, Herschel's RA is correct, though his declination is off. ===== NGC 1415 = IC 1983, which see. ===== NGC 1416 has suffered a bit in the literature. It was discovered by Frank Muller at Leander-McCormick before he and his fellow observers there were measuring good positions for the nebulae they were finding, so it has an NGC declination that is about 3.5 arcmin off. In addition, the two bright stars just south are described as "* 8.7, nr; * 8.6, n 2'". The actual place of the "* 8.6" is south by 3.5 arcmin, while the "* 8.7" is 1.5 arcmin south. This apparently confused Herbert Howe, too. He wrote in his second MN paper, "Muller gave this nebula as 2' north [sic] of a star of mag. 8.6. It is really south [sic] of the star. There is another star of equal mag. about 5' south of the star mentioned. The position of the nebula is 03 36 41, -23 02.4 [1900.0]." What Howe should have said is "Muller gave this nebula as 2' south of a star of mag. 8.6. It is really north of the star. ..." Still, he did get the galaxy's position right, assuming that this really is the one that Muller saw. Dreyer copied Howe's corrected declination into a note for IC2. Carlson had this to say in 1940 about the object: "NGC correct, W" where the "W" is the source of the note, a Mt. Wilson photograph. She has a footnote on the object that reads "Howe's correction (D III) to NGC not confirmed" ("D III" refers to Dreyer's Notes in IC2). Unfortunately, she is wrong as the NGC declination lands between the two bright stars; Howe is right. So, nobody has got it completely right. This leads me to question Howe's identification, which is the usual one adopted by every catalogue since that includes the galaxy. However, there is no other galaxy in the area that has two bright stars close to it. So, this is most likely Muller's object. ===== NGC 1420 is a triple star at d'Arrest's position. The identity is nailed down by d'A's mention of the "* 13 10.5 seconds preceding [at about the same] declination." That star is there. ===== NGC 1424. See NGC 1429. ===== NGC 1425 may also be IC 1988, which see. ===== NGC 1426. See IC 1983 = NGC 1415. ===== NGC 1429 is lost. Leavenworth describes it as "15.5, 0.3 x 0.2, E 180 deg, gbMN; 2nd of 2." The first of two is NGC 1424 which carries this description in the Leander McCormick list: "15.2, 0.2, R, gbM; 1st of 2, one of which is GC 763 [N1424]; * 10 p 15 sec." The description of Leavenworth's "2nd of 2" matches the one galaxy in the area. But that is it. The star 15 sec west of the galaxy is 13th magnitude, and there is an 11th magnitude star half that distance northwest. Why did Leavenworth not mention that? I think that Leavenworth has misidentified the known galaxy so that his description applies to a different pair altogether. But which pair? I don't see any other in the area that matches the descriptions. So, NGC 1429 is another lost NGC object until someone with sharper eyes than me has a go at the problem. ===== NGC 1432 is the reflection nebula around Maia in the Pleiades. Though the brightest part of the nebula is to the north-northwest of the star (see e.g. Barnard's description in AN 3018), I have simply adopted the position of Maia itself. See NGC 1435 for more on the Pleiades nebulosity. ===== NGC 1434 may be the galaxy I chose for ESGC at 03 43.8, -09 50. This has a star of about the right brightness 20 seconds east and 3 arcminutes south that might match the star in Muller's description. He put the 8.5 mag star at 25 seconds east and 3 arcmin north. If he made a mistake in his direction, the ESGC galaxy would fit his description. NGC 1445 (which see), suggested as a possible identity for N1434, also fits Muller's description, but it has no star anywhere near that could be Muller's. I think this identification is less likely. ===== NGC 1435 is the part of the reflection nebula around Merope extending almost directly south by 10 to 15 arcmin from the star. For some time, I had thought that it and IC 349 (which see) are identical. However, reading Barnard's careful observations of the Pleiades in AN 3018 (where he announces the discovery of IC 349), it became clear that the IC object is actually a brighter knot in the larger Merope nebula, and very close to the star itself. Under normal conditions, Merope's light swamps the knot, so it is not surprising that it was not found until the keen-eyed Barnard turned the Lick 36-inch refractor on it (though Pritchard claims an earlier image on a plate taken at Cambridge in the late 1880's; see Herbig's article in AJ 111, 1241, 1996 for a complete history of IC 349). NGC 1435, however, is fairly easily seen on good nights with much smaller telescopes. I've picked it out with a six-inch, and I suspect that any good scope of four inches or more would give a view of it. ===== NGC 1441. See NGC 1443 and NGC 1446. ===== NGC 1443 is a star. Tempel found it while observing NGC 1441, 1449, 1451, and 1453. His description says that his nova forms a trapezium with N1441, N1449, and N1451 -- indeed it does. Tempel probably has another star here, NGC 1446, that also made it into the catalogue. See it for more. ===== NGC 1445 is clearly identified by Muller's 9th magnitude star, 2 arcmin away in position angle 330 degrees. Some of the Leander McCormick positions and descriptions are sufficient for pretty solid identifications of the objects. This galaxy has also been suggested as a possible identification for NGC 1434 (which see), but I think that is unlikely -- there is no 8.5 mag star 25 seconds east, 3 arcmin north (or south for that matter). ===== NGC 1446. This is probably a star roughly 2 arcmin south of Tempel's position. He says of it, "... follows N1441 by 16 seconds [and is] +3/4 arcmin" (a crude translation of "... und folgt 16 seconds auf [GC] 772 +3/4'.") If the plus sign is switched to a minus sign, the star I've included in the table is Tempel's object. He has another nova here that is certainly a star. See NGC 1443 for details. ===== NGC 1448 = NGC 1457, which see. ===== NGC 1449. See NGC 1443. ===== NGC 1450. Howe corrected Swift's RA which is 16 seconds too large, an error this object shares with three others that Swift found the same night (NGC 652, N1509 = IC 2026, and N1594 = IC 2075). See NGC 1677 = NGC 1659 for more about this night of Swift's observing. ===== NGC 1451. See NGC 1443. ===== NGC 1452 = NGC 1455, which see. ===== NGC 1453. See NGC 1443. ===== NGC 1454 is probably the star that Steve Gottlieb and I have independently fingered. It matches the description given by Muller, and -- in particular -- there is a considerably brighter star just where Muller notes it: "* 9.5, P 240 deg, distance 3.2 arcmin." My thanks to Steve for bringing this back to my attention; I had lost the identity in my hand-written notes (how many others are there, I wonder?!). ===== NGC 1455 is probably identical to NGC 1452. The position, by Leavenworth at Leander McCormick, is pretty poor, but the description exactly fits the nucleus and inner bar of NGC 1452. In particular, the position angle mentioned by Leavenworth (30 deg) is just that of the bar. The RNGC galaxy is certainly the wrong choice -- it has too low a surface brightness to be seen even with a 26-inch refractor. ===== NGC 1456 is a double star. One component looked nebulous to Lohse; other than that, his description -- "D * 10-12, comp. nebulous (130 deg, 9 arcsec)" -- is good. ===== NGC 1457 = NGC 1448. JH has only one observation of NGC 1448; its RA is exactly 50 seconds in error. He has three accordant observations of NGC 1457 at the correct position, yet modern observers -- following Shapley-Ames -- have used the number 1448 for the galaxy. Strange people, astronomers. The identity was first suggested by DeLisle Stewart in the big list of new nebulae which he found on Harvard plates in the 1890's and early 1900's. There, he noted that N1448 was "Not seen, error for 1457 which is identified." In spite of this correction coming from a paper which they must have known, Shapley and Ames chose to use the number 1448 rather than 1457. Cataloguers are strange people ... ===== NGC 1474 is probably the same as IC 2002 at 03 51 45.9, +10 33 37 (B1950.0 from GSC). In addition to the problem with the original position, RNGC got the dec sign wrong, and that incorrect sign was copied into NGC 2000.0. NGC 1474 was discovered in early in October 1864 by Albert Marth using William Lassell's 48-inch reflector at Malta, and was only observed once. The position is rough, as are many of Marth's. Of the other nine objects that he found that same night, two (N1141/2) have declination errors of 30 arcmin, another (N7575) has a 1 degree dec error, and two others (N7519 and N7593) have RA errors of 30 seconds of time. IC 2002 was found 21 Dec 1903 by Javelle with the large refractor at Nice. He measured the position micrometrically, so the IC position is pretty good. This galaxy is UGC 2898 = MCG +02-10-003, and also occurs in CGCG. While Marth's description ("very faint, small, round") does not match Javelle's very well, especially in ellipticity ("... elongated along the meridian ..."), there is no other galaxy in the area that Marth is likely to have seen. Nevertheless, the N1474 identification with I2002 must be an uncertain one. Perhaps N1474 is really another star. ===== NGC 1475. The galaxy about four arcmin west of the NGC position is most likely the object that Leavenworth found. He mentions a 14th magnitude star four arcmin northwest of the nebula; there is no such star there. However, four arcmin southwest of is just such a star. Given the otherwise good description of the object, the incorrect direction is probably a simple transcription mistake. I missed the object when scanning for ESGC, so it is not included in the early editions of that catalogue. ===== NGC 1479 and NGC 1480 are a lost pair of nebulae seen only by Frank Muller at Leander McCormick. He made careful notes of the field for each nebula (N1479: "1st of 2; nebulous **, PA 170 deg"; N1480: "2nd of 2; * 10 f 30 sec."), but these don't help to identify the objects. There is just no pattern of nebulae and stars in the area of his positions that could match the descriptions. ===== NGC 1480. See NGC 1479. ===== NGC 1488 is a double star. Listed as a "Star 12 involved in nebulosity" in the Markree Catalogue, it was picked up by Auwers for his 1862 list of new nebulae appended to his reduction of WH's positions. Auwers adds a note which reads, "Place from the Markree Catalogue. I've not looked for it myself." The Markree position (03 57 12, +18 25.8; B1950.0) is very good and points exactly at the double. The object (CGCG 466-003) suggested as N1488 in several modern catalogues is far too faint to have been picked up by the Markree observers. The position for the double in the main table is a mean of the GSC positions for the individual stars. ===== NGC 1491 is a diffuse nebula found by WH. His description is very good, as is his position. Dreyer nevertheless used the micrometric position measured by Engelhardt. This is refers to a star about 1.5 arcmin east of the brightest part of the nebulosity; WH mentions the star explicitly: "... a pL star in it towards the following side, but unconnected." The position I've adopted follows WH, and applies to the center of the nebula. ===== NGC 1498 is probably the triangle of three stars centered about 2 arcmin west of the NGC position. Curiously, WH's original observation reduces to a position 34 seconds of time on further west (there is nothing in that field but a few 18th magnitude galaxies). The NGC position comes from GC; did CH make an error in her reduction of her brother's observations or did JH somehow miscopy his aunt's MS? Or did they have access to other information in the sweep that led them to change the position? GC has no notes on the object, and Dreyer's 1912 note to WH's observation, "There is no very pronounced cluster near the place," is not very informative even if it is accurate. The only other historical evidence comes from Auwers's reduction: he gets the same answer I do, 34 seconds west of the NGC position. Assuming that the asterism is indeed the object that WH saw, we now find it about 40 arcsec across, and matching WH's description pretty well. Could he have glimpsed some of the much fainter stars in the field as well? They might add a "depth" to the asterism that would make it appear to stand out even more from the surrounding field and take on the appearance of a richer cluster. ===== NGC 1499 is the brightest part of the very extensive California Nebula, so called since its outline more or less resembles the outline of the state. Barnard's position -- apparently sent to Dreyer in a letter, since it is not in any of his published notes -- is just off the nebula to its east. The position I've adopted is more or less the center of the brightest portion of the nebulosity on its northeastern edge. ===== NGC 1509 = IC 2026. NGC 1509 was found independently by Swift and by Muller (who claimed two observations; he left us no sketch). Dreyer adopted Swift's position (which is 12 seconds of time too large) and description, though Muller's descriptive data certainly match what Swift recorded. (See NGC 1677 = NGC 1659 for more on other nebulae which Swift discovered on this night of 22 October 1886.) Bigourdan tried to find the galaxy a few years later in December of 1890, but could not see anything at the NGC position ("Searched with care, but in vain"). His second observation seven years later was only slightly more successful: when his measurements are reduced, they point to a star east of the galaxy. However, he also saw the galaxy on that second night, and measured it, too. Supposing it to be new -- it is not at the NGC position, of course -- he listed it among his novae, so it received the IC number. There is a fainter galaxy just to the west of NGC 1509 that is often taken as IC 2026. I'm not surprised that Bigourdan and Swift missed it; its magnitude is around V = 15, and it does not have a bright nucleus. However, Muller, working with the 26-inch at Leander McCormick, has picked up fainter galaxies. Perhaps he observed on poor nights, or perhaps he could only see high surface brightness objects with the long-focus refractor. He makes NGC 1509 only 0.1 arcmin in diameter, which means that he saw only its core. Finally, the 1893 list of micrometrically measured nebulae from Leander McCormick includes a nebula claimed to be NGC 1509. Unfortunately, only the declination was measured, so the object cannot be unambiguously identified. However, even the measured declination does not agree with the accurate value from Bigourdan and the modern sources. This measurement probably refers to a star (the description given in the 1893 paper bears this out). ===== NGC 1523 is only a group of 5-6 stars. JH's position is good, but his description from a single night is sparce. Delisle Stewart first saw the object as a group of stars on a Bruce plate from Arequipa, then Andris and I picked it up during our surveys of the southern sky in the 1970's. At first glance there are only four stars here. However, at least two of them appear to be blends of fainter stars, so there are probably at least six stars altogether in the asterism. ===== NGC 1538 =? IC 2045, and IC 2047. N1538 is perhaps the brightest galaxy in a small cluster. Stone's sketch (at least my copy of the sketch), however, seems to point to IC 2047, the second brightest. Unfortunately, his position, as poor as usual, falls near yet another galaxy in the cluster. It was this object that has been taken to be N1538 by Howe in 1901 and Reinmuth in 1928. So, the NGC identification is not at all certain. Observing logic suggests IC 2045, the sketch suggests IC 2047, and Stone's crude position has led to the third galaxy. All three are in the table of positions. ===== NGC 1539 may be CGCG 488-001, which is about 1 minute east and 4-5 arcmin north of the NGC position, correctly copied from Marth's table. Marth has only one observation of the object, and there is nothing near his position that would match his description. The CGCG galaxy is bright enough that Marth could have seen it, and the 1 minute/5 arcmin offset puts his position within his usual accuracy of the galaxy, so I've retained it as a possible identification for the NGC entry. ===== NGC 1540 is probably the southern galaxy of the interacting pair. It is somewhat brighter and more concentrated than the northern. ===== NGC 1550 = NGC 1551, which see. ===== NGC 1551 = NGC 1550. WH made a recording or transcription error of exactly one degree in the NPD of II 464, placing it on the parallel with his comparison star (44 Eridani). D'Arrest could not find the object and was the first to suggest that it might be the same as N1550, just one degree north of WH's place. Dreyer added a note to this effect in NGC, and later adopted it as a "definitive" answer to the problem, as indeed, it seems to be. JH has a comment in GC about the object, noting a 5 arcmin difference between CH's reduction and Auwers's. He attributes this to CH using an incorrect NPD for the comparison star. He says nothing about the larger one degree error. Finally, while I'm splitting hairs, WH's description in Dreyer's 1912 edition of the Complete Papers reads, "F, vS, r," while GC and NGC both have "F, S, R". Since JH had access to WH's records, it may be that he corrected another mistake. Or it may be that Dreyer or his typesetter made one. A check of the original paper in Philosophical Transactions could eliminate at least one of these possibilities. A look at the Herschel Archives at the RAS (or at any library which has the microfilm version) would be needed to check the other. ===== NGC 1554 and NGC 1555 are both involved with the young variable star T Tauri. They are among the most notorious of the nebulae found during the 19th century as they are the only nebulae certainly known to vary in brightness -- even to the point of disappearing, as NGC 1554 has done. They are most likely reflection nebulae, created as thick dust clouds near the star move about, mostly casting shadows, but occasionally letting "shafts of sunlight" out to illuminate the surrounding dense interstellar gas and dust. Nebulae were first noticed around the star by Hind in the 1850's, and were later observed by d'Arrest, Struve, and Dreyer among others. Dreyer has brief synopses of the observations in the NGC and IC Notes, and points (in the IC2 Notes) to a paper by Barnard in Monthly Notices which details most of the history of the T Tauri nebulae up to about 1900. For all the fuss that these nebulae created in the 19th century, they are all quite small and very faint at the present time. As I noted above, NGC 1554 is not visible on the Palomar Sky Survey plates (taken in the early 1950's). Also not visible is a nebula seen only by Bigourdan (B. 144; mislabeled as B. 143 by him in his big table). He makes its position 04 19 09.5, +19 21 51 (B1950.0) from a single observation on 12 Dec 1890. This is about 4 arcmin southeast of T Tauri in a blank patch of sky. Still, observers might find it fascinating to monitor the area for changes. ===== NGC 1557 is a clump of 10-15 stars that cover an area of 15 arcmin by 10 arcmin a few degrees northwest of the LMC. JH's position applies to SAO 256073, but the clump is centered about 5 arcmin south. That is the position that I've adopted. ESO, Wolfgang Steinicke, and Tom DeMary put the declination closer to the star, but that misses JH's "loose and straggling" cluster. The few stars marked "N1557" in the Hodge-Wright Atlas are northwest of JH's object. ===== NGC 1560 is not IC 2062 as I supposed in RC2. I2062 (which see) is a star. ===== NGC 1586. See IC 371. ===== NGC 1590. See IC 2074. ===== NGC 1593 = NGC 1608 = IC 2077. Neither of the NGC observers did very well by this galaxy. Marth has the RA 1 minute too small, and LdR has it 30 seconds too large along with a declination that is 8.5 arcmin off. In addition, LdR notes the nearby star as "south" of the galaxy rather than north (an error that Dreyer caught before he prepared the NGC). Javelle, however, has one observation that is within 10 arcsec of the galaxy -- he got it right. Reinmuth first suggested the identity of NGC 1608 with IC 2077, but I think that the identity with NGC 1593 had to wait until I ran across it doing ESGC. ===== NGC 1594 = IC 2075, which see for the story. Briefly, Swift's RA is off by 17 seconds of time (see also NGC 1677 = NGC 1659 for other interesting tidbits about the nebulae Swift found this night of 22 October 1886). This misled Bigourdan into thinking he had found a new nebula. Howe had corrected the RA for Swift's object, and Dreyer put the correction into an IC2 Note. However, Dreyer did not catch the identity with IC 2075 even though its position is only 30 arcsec off Howe's corrected place for N1594. This also had an impact on IC 2080 (which see) which shares the same RA error as NGC 1594. ===== NGC 1599 may also be NGC 1610, which see. ===== NGC 1600. See NGC 1610. ===== NGC 1608 = NGC 1593 = IC 2077. See NGC 1593. ===== NGC 1610 is probably one of the faint nebulae in the NGC 1600 group -- but which one? There is nothing at Leavenworth's position, and his description (m = 15.5, D = 0.2 arcmin; R, bMN) could match any of the several fainter members of the group. Among the more likely candidates are NGC 1599, and RNGC 1610. N1599 is at the same declination and is just over a minute of time west of the nominal place of N1610. However, it has a bright star just 1.1 arcmin east-northeast which Leavenworth would almost certainly have mentioned had he seen this galaxy. The RNGC identification is also possible, but is 7 arcmin south and 1.4 minutes of time east of Leavenworth's place. Neither of these options is particularly compelling, but are still worth noting. ===== NGC 1619, like N1610, is probably one of the faint members of the NGC 1600 group. It was found by Lewis Swift on 22 December 1886 along with N1621, N1627, N1628, and N1699. Unlike those other four, however, there is nothing at all near Swift's place. Again, as with N1610, there are two candidates for N1619 that seem more likely to me. RNGC 1610 is two minutes of time west and 8 arcminutes north, while the 51st object in Reinmuth's 1932 list of nebulae is 1 minute 20 seconds west and 28 arcmin north. I'm not convinced that either of these is Swift's lost nebula, but I note them in any event. ===== NGC 1621. See NGC 1619. ===== NGC 1627. See NGC 1619. ===== NGC 1628. See NGC 1619. ===== NGC 1632 is probably = IC 386 (which see), but could possibly be IC 382. ===== NGC 1641 may be the clump of stars centered about 4 arcmin northwest of JH's position. He describes his object as a "pL, p rich, irreg R cluster; p m comp M; 5'; stars 11...16." There are only about 15 stars scattered across a 9 arcmin by 6 arcmin area. If this is JH's object, it must look better at the eyepiece than it does on the Sky Survey films. The object labeled "N1641" in the Hodge-Wright Atlas is a pair of faint interacting galaxies (ESO 084-IG025) that JH could not have seen. The galaxies were further misclassified as an open cluster, and appeared as number 6 in the Shapley-Lindsay list. ===== NGC 1649 = NGC 1652. JH has only one observation of NGC 1649 in Sweep 523 that puts it about 9 arcmin south and 6 seconds preceding NGC 1652 (his original data for N1649 are 04 38 43.3, -69 08 37 for 1830). This is only a few arcsec from the star SAO 249073, but JH makes no mention of a nearby bright star in his observation. NGC 1652 is an LMC cluster which JH observed on three nights (Sweeps 508, 653, and 759) with fairly accordant positions (the unweighted mean is 04 38 49.2, -68 59 56). He did not record N1652 in the sweep in which he found N1649; he has it only in the three other sweeps of the area. Also interesting are his descriptions: they are virtually identical in sweeps 523 and 759. He writes `F, R, gbM, 30",' and `F, R, gbM, 35",' respectively. The descriptions in sweeps 508 and 653 make the cluster `vF, S, R, gbM, 12" ' and `vF, S, R'. Since the difference in declination is close to 10 arcmin (a digit error that JH and others made several times), and the RA's are not very much different -- many other CGH observations also show RA differences of six seconds or more of time, especially as far south as the LMC -- I think that the two NGC numbers refer to the same object. Hodge and Wright came to the same conclusion in the LMC Atlas, but are rather cautious and say, "Possibly NGC 1652. Declination off by 9'." However, just eight arcmin south of NGC 1652 is a faint LMC cluster (ESO 055-SC031 = KMHK 022) that Lauberts, in ESO-B, suggested might be NGC 1649, though with two question marks and a note commenting on the declination difference. He also has N1649 = N1652 with one less question mark. KMHK (Konzitas et al, A&AS 84, 527, 1990) do not use the NGC number on the cluster, and apparently did not notice the ESO-B entry. Bica et al (AJ 117, 238, 1999), however, use N1649 for the cluster, and also note the ESO entry. Jenni Kay has also picked up the faint cluster with her large reflector, so it is not impossible that JH saw it while sweeping. In an email to Jenni and to Mati Morel (who alerted me to Jenni's observation) I wondered, though, if the star might hinder JH's ability to see the very faint cluster. It certainly did not get in Jenni's way! In response, Mati listed eight cases where JH found objects near bright stars (V < 9.5) in the LMC. JH mentions the star (or stars) in only four of his descriptions, so the presence of the star alone would probably not be an obstacle to his having seen the cluster, assuming that it (the cluster) is bright and large enough to have attracted his notice during a sweep. So, I do have a bit of doubt about the identity of NGC 1649 -- but not much. ===== NGC 1652 is probably also NGC 1649, which see. ===== NGC 1655. This is one of 20 new nebulae found by J. G. Lohse with a telescope at "Mr. Wigglesworth's observatory," and sent directly to Dreyer in the form of a private communication. Thus, the only readily available information we have on them comes from the NGC itself. In this case, that includes the position and the description, "pB, R, gbM, * 10 s." There is a star of about 10th magnitude 2.5 arcmin south of Lohse's position for N1655, but there is nothing at all at that position. Delisle Stewart searched for N1655 on a Harvard plate, and could not find it either. He has an intriguing note attached, however: "... a hazy star p 1 minute, same Dec." I don't even see that "hazy star" on the POSS1 prints; is it a defect on the Harvard plate? So, N1655, too, is presumeably lost. ===== NGC 1659 = NGC 1677, which see. ===== NGC 1663 is probably the poor, scattered cluster about 45 seconds of time following WH's single position. This is one of his earlier objects (10 Feb 1784), so the position problem -- if it is one -- may be understandable as part of his learning curve. His description "A cluster of large and small scattered stars, not rich" certainly fits. There are about two dozen stars scattered over an area 12 arcmin by 10 arcmin with a 4 arcmin by 4 arcmin core containing half the stars. WH's position itself sits in a void surrounded by a weak annulus half a degree across of scattered stars, strongest on the following side (where the cluster noted in the previous paragraph sits). Is this the object that WH actually saw? If so, I suspect that he would have noted the annular structure. My best guess is the cluster following his position. Visual verification would not go amiss. ===== NGC 1665. See IC 2091. ===== NGC 1667 = NGC 1689, which see. Also see IC 394 and NGC 1677 = NGC 1659. ===== NGC 1671 may refer to the same galaxy as IC 395. Swift's description ("pF, pS, R, pB * nr sp") matches I395 (a later discovery also by Swift) pretty well, but the position is over a degree off in declination, and 43 seconds of time off. None of the other objects found by Swift on the same night (2 October 1886) have position errors anywhere nearly that large, and there is no suggestion of systematic offsets in either coordinate among the other objects. So, this is probably another lost object, though the I395 connection is not totally outrageous. ===== NGC 1674 and NGC 1675 are "Two faint nebulae in the same field" found by J. G. Lohse at "Mr. Wigglesworth's observatory." Lohse did not publish any data for these, but sent them directly to Dreyer who included them in the NGC. As with NGC 1655 (which see), which Lohse found in the same part of the sky, there is no trace of these at Lohse's given position. Three arcmin south is a group of six faint stars about an arcmin across, but we would need visual observations to tell if these could be mistaken for two nebulae. ===== NGC 1677 = NGC 1659 with a 5 minute error in its RA. It is not IC 2099 as I had supposed when I went over the field for ESGC. Here is the story. Swift found 14 nebulae on the night of 22 October 1886. In general, his positions are pretty good, being on average out by +5 seconds in RA and just +17 arcsec in declination. However, these numbers exclude two objects, NGC 1689 and NGC 1677. Both have RA's in Swift's fifth list (and in the NGC) which are 5 minutes of time too large. (In addition, another group of four objects from this night, NGC 652, N1450, N1509 = IC 2026, and N1594 = I2075, have a mean RA offset of +15 seconds of time). The identifications are secured by Swift's declinations (which are within 20 arcsec in both cases), and by his descriptions which are accordant with the Herschel's (for N1659) and with Stephan's (for N1667). In addition, these are among the brightest three or four objects that Swift found this night, and thus are the least likely to have been overlooked by other observers. ===== NGC 1689 = NGC 1667 is five minutes of time off its true position. See NGC 1677 = NGC 1659 for more on the nebulae that Swift found this night of 22 October 1886. ===== NGC 1692 is another of the Leander McCormick nebulae which was sketched. The sketch confirms the SGC and NGC 2000.0 identification with the galaxy called "A0453-20" in RC2. ===== NGC 1699. See NGC 1619. ===== NGC 1707 = IC 2107 (which see for more) is an asterism of four stars with a fifth (considerably fainter) just north. JH's RA is 30 seconds of time too large; this misled Bigourdan into rediscovering the object. Reinmuth was apparently the first to notice that the two numbers apply to the same object. ===== NGC 1708 is a large cluster of stars of magnitudes 10 to 14, about 20 arcmin by 12 arcmin in size, and elongated north to south. It is centered about 7 arcmin southeast of JH's position, but nevertheless is unmistakeable. This is one of RNGC's "nonexistent" clusters. Personally, I don't see how they could have missed it. ===== NGC 1709. Is this = NGC 1717 (which see)? ===== NGC 1710 = IC 2108, which see. Once again, a poor position from the early lists out of Leander McCormick led to enough confusion for Bigourdan that the galaxy received two numbers in Dreyer's catalogues. However, Bigourdan eventually caught his mistake (after seeing the list of micrometrically measured nebulae from Leander McCormick), and made the identity himself in his own big table of micrometric measurements. The object which he initially measured as N1710 is nothing more than a faint star. ===== NGC 1713. See NGC 1717. ===== NGC 1717. Dreyer gives 04 56 36, -00 19.2 (B1950.0) as the position of this object. There is nothing at all in that place, not even a faint star. So, the identity of this NGC entry is not known with certainty. However, we do know that it is either a star, or it is NGC 1709. Here is the story. Reading through Lord Rosse's descriptions of N1719 (bear with me here), it looks as if the "3 vF neb" seen on 15 Jan 1845 are NGC 1709, 1713, and 1719. This assumes that Dreyer's comment "The two upper (sic) ones are probably h339 (N1713) and h340 (N1719)" is meaningful and correct. This would probably point to N1709 as the third nebula -- but what does Dreyer mean by "upper"? The northern-most or (assume an inverted field) the southern-most? LdR goes on to say that d'Arrest, in his observation of N1719, has a star 13-14 4.7s p, and 80" north (as, indeed d'A does, along with a detailed description in Latin that I must translate one of these days). This must be the object that Dreyer is refering to in NGC when he says "(? F *)." There are two other stars, one perhaps double, in the same area. So, it is possible that one of these was mistaken by LdR as a faint nebula (many other of the stars to receive NGC numbers are also from LdR's observations). LdR looked again at NGC 1719 on two other nights, and could find no trace of a nebula northwest of it. So, it may be possible that he mistook NGC 1713 for NGC 1719 on that first night. Since there is a galaxy northwest of N1713 -- NGC 1709 -- this hypothesis would then make NGC 1717 = NGC 1709, as I suggested above. Since there were no other observations of the area published before the NGC appeared, we are left with four candidates for N1717. All but NGC 1709 are stars northwest of NGC 1719. Two of those stars are bright enough to be in GSC. Here are the positions (B1950.0) of all three stars: 04 56 52.2 -00 19 16 HCo Slightly elongated image -- perhaps double? 04 56 45.91 -00 18 11.2 GSC 04 56 56.55 -00 18 42.9 GSC Brightest of the three -- most likely candidate star. So, we are left with a puzzle. There may be other relevant observations in the post-NGC literature, but it's unlikely that they will help sort out this particular problem. ===== NGC 1719. See NGC 1717. ===== NGC 1730. Comparison stars for this figure in the uncertain identifications for IC 400, which see. ===== NGC 1736. JH's position is toward the middle of the western "lobe" of the nebula. This is where the brightest stars are located, including the "chief of which in the anterior part of the neb [was] taken." In the one sweep when he estimated the size of the nebula, though, he made it four arcmin long and 2.5 arcmin across, almost exactly what we seen on the short exposure DSS V-band plate. The position I've adopted is more toward the intersection of the "lobes" and is more representative of the entire nebula. One last note on this: it is not identical to either IC 2115 or 2116, in spite of what ESO claims. See I2115 for more on this. ===== NGC 1737 is part of the NGC 1743 star-forming complex in the LMC. See NGC 1745 and IC 2114 for more. ===== NGC 1743. See NGC 1745 and IC 2114. ===== NGC 1745 is a diffuse nebula -- probably an emission nebula -- in the NGC 1743 complex in the LMC. John Herschel's position was an estimate based on his measured positions for NGC 1743 and N1748, but it is close enough to the correct position to identify the nebula without question. N1745 is called a star cluster in the ESO/Uppsala catalogue, but this is wrong. Furthermore, there is no cluster at the ESO position, but just a group of faint stars. ===== NGC 1746. This is a curious case, found by d'A while searching for NGC 1750 (which see) = H VIII 43. He describes it as a poor cluster, and places it about 10 arcmin north of WH's place -- but nevertheless calls it H VIII 43. Dreyer apparently thought it a separate object since he gave it a new GC number in the GC supplement. There is a group of about a dozen faint stars at d'A's place, and a much more extensive group at WH's place (see the note for N1750 for a description). While I'm doubtful that d'A's object is worth numbering, I'm going to follow Dreyer as closely as possible and retain both objects at something like their original positions. I must note, however, that Galadi-Enriquez et al (A&AS 131, 239, 1998) have shown that this group of stars is neither astrometrically nor photometrically a real cluster. It is no more than a random clump in the rich Milky Way field in Taurus. ===== NGC 1748 = IC 2114, which see. Also see NGC 1745. ===== NGC 1750 may be the same object as NGC 1746 (which see). If so, there is a 10 minute error in the declination for N1746. The group of stars I see on the POSS1 close to WH's place consists of about 20 9th to 12th magnitude stars scattered over an area 25 arcmin by 12 arcmin, with the long axis at PA roughly = 125 degrees. I put the cluster center about 3 arcmin east of WH's RA. Reinmuth claims this to be the central group in a very large cluster also containing N1746 and N1758. Galadi-Enriquez et al (A&AS 131, 239, 1998) have confirmed the reality of this cluster as well as NGC 1758. They have also shown, however, that the clump of stars I call NGC 1746 (which see) near d'A's position is not a true cluster. ===== NGC 1758. See NGC 1746 and NGC 1750. ===== NGC 1763 is a bi-lobed complex of HII regions and star clusters in the LMC. JH's descriptions and positions from five different sweeps are appropriate, though he was not happy with one of his RA's. It's possible that the numbers IC 2115 and 2116 refer to parts of N1763. See them for that story. ===== NGC 1770. See IC 2117. ===== NGC 1785 is an asterism of about 5 stars superposed on the LMC. It was found by JH in Zone 9 of his special sweeps of the Large Cloud with "an equatorially mounted telescope of five inches aperture, and seven feet focal length, by Tulley, which had served me for the measurement of double stars in England ..." The position is good, and it is accurately plotted on JH's wonderful map of the LMC. ESO suggested two different objects as candidates for N1785. One was a chain of 5-10 stars (of which JH's object is the south-western end); the other was Shapley-Lindsay 150, a faint LMC open cluster about 20 arcmin south-east of JH's astersim. This latter is much too faint to have been seen during sweeps with a five-inch refractor, and the position is well off JH's. ===== NGC 1787 is a large (20 arcmin by 15 arcmin) cloud of stars in the LMC. This number has been applied to SL 178, but that is a faint, small cluster that JH did not see. On the Hodge-Wright Atlas, I put the center about five arcmin northwest of JH's, but either will serve to identify his cluster. ===== NGC 1790 is a group of about a dozen stars of 10th to 12th magnitude scattered around JH's position. It probably looks better at the eyepiece than it does on the Sky Survey prints; JH calls it "A pretty object," while RNGC puts it into the "nonexistent" category. JH's position is about 3 arcminutes east of the apparent center on the POSS1 blue plate. ===== NGC 1797. See NGC 1392. ===== NGC 1799. See NGC 1392. ===== NGC 1874, NGC 1876, and NGC 1877 are three emission nebulae in a large complex star-forming region in the LMC. ESO did not provide separate positions for them, so those adopted here come from GSC or from offsets to GSC stars. JH's positions are excellent for the first two, adequate for the third -- but that comes from a sketch drawn on 17 Jan 1838, not from one of the sweeps, so I'd expect lesser accuracy for it. ===== NGC 1876. See NGC 1874. ===== NGC 1877. See NGC 1874. ===== NGC 1882 is probably not NGC 1884, which see for more. ===== NGC 1884. During my early work on the LMC Atlas, I identified this with NGC 1882. But that is unlikely as JH found both objects during the same sweep. There is nothing obvious at JH's position matching his description ("eF, 2' diam."), and I entered it simply as "Not found" going through the NGC a few years ago. For now, that is how I'll leave it. ===== NGC 1891 is the scattering of stars somewhat following JH's position. That position is for the brightest star (SAO 195771), a double on the western side of the cluster. There are about 20 stars covering an area 19 arcmin by 14 arcmin. They may be a dispersed open cluster, but could just as well be a random collection of field stars. ===== NGC 1896. A nine degree error in declination was introduced in the GC, and copied intact into the NGC. The Herschels' original positions are good, and point to a scattering of about 20 9th to 12th magnitude stars. This may not be a real cluster, but that determination will depend on detailed studies of proper motions and photometry of the stars. This group, by the way, is not OCL 450 (in the Prague catalogue). That is a much more distant, much fainter cluster about half a degree north-west of NGC 1896. ===== NGC 1901 is a scattered grouping of Milky Way stars superposed on the Large Magellanic Cloud. The position I list in the table is for the eccentric core a few arcminutes northeast of the center of the entire group. JH's position applies to the seventh magnitude star on the southern edge of the group. Coincidentally, there is a much fainter LMC cluster just a couple of arcmin from JH's position. ESO took this to be the NGC cluster, but it is not. ===== NGC 1908. WH has only one observation of this on 1 Feb 1786 where he says, "Diffused extremely faint nebulosity. The means of verifying this phenomenon are difficult." JH and Dreyer took this to mean that the nebula was only suspected, so that is how it is entered in the GC and NGC. WH places the nebulosity 1 min, 26 sec east, and 7 arcmin south of Eta Ori. There is nothing here on either of the POSS1 plates, nor on the SERC EJ plate. However, 7 arcmin north of Eta Ori there is a very faint, very diffuse sheen of nebulosity (I make the approximate position 05 23.0, -02 20). But could WH have seen this? I very much doubt it. So, I've tentatively labeled this "Not found." ===== NGC 1909. WH has one observation of this "Strongly suspected nebulosity of very great extent." He makes its size "Not less than 2 deg 11 arcmin of PD and 26 sec of RA in time." These numbers come from his offsets from Rigel: 11m 09s east to 11m 35s east, and 1 deg 19 arcmin north to 52 arcmin south. While this whole area is covered with a very diffused, very low surface brightness nebulosity, I do not see anything that WH could have seen easily. In particular, there is no nebula stretched out north to south as WH describes. However, at about the right distance WEST of Rigel, there is such a nebula, IC 2118. It is bright enough that WH might have seen it during his sweeps, and it more or less matches his description. So, I am going to suggest, pending visual confirmation, that IC 2118 is the object WH found, and that he wrote "east" rather than "west" in his log book. ===== NGC 1911 may be NGC 1920. JH has N1920 in seven different sweeps, but not in the one sweep when he found N1911 -- that is Sweep 522. The declinations are within an arcminute, but the RA is different by 1m 20s. The extra 20 seconds bothers me, so I've put a colon on the identity. JH's eight different descriptions are pretty well accordant, though he does have the size of the nebula range between 20 arcsec and 2 arcmin (he puts N1911 at 30 arcsec). I also checked the possibility of a systematic position offset among the other 37 objects that JH recorded in that very productive sweep through the northern part of the LMC -- there isn't any. One curious thing turned up, however: N1911 is the ONLY object in the sweep that was not seen in any other sweep. A final note: JH suggests that this and N1915 may be the same. I don't think so; see N1915 for more on this. ===== NGC 1915. JH has this in only one sweep (760 on 2 Jan 1837), and calls it only "eF, pL." However, he adds, "(Possibly the same with No. 2826 [NGC 1911], but the nebulae are so crowded that they may with equal probablility be different ones.)" I don't think it is the same as N1911 (which see). The descriptions are too different, and N1911 is probably the same object as N1920. So, what is N1915? JH's position is about an arcminute northwest of the center of a stellar association 3 arcmin by 2 arcmin across (coincidentally, there is a faint cluster on the northeastern edge of the association). The object shows up clearly on the Southern Sky Survey IIIa-J film, somewhat less clearly on the 2nd generation DSS image, and not at all on the quick V plate used for the DSS distributed on CD-ROM. The association is, admittedly, pretty faint to have been picked up visually. Still, JH was careful, had keen eyesight, and didn't miss much in the LMC that he could have seen. Another possibility is that N1915 is a second observation (in the following sweep on the next night, 3 Jan 1837) of NGC 1919 which JH also describes as "eF, L ...". He goes on to add, however, "... irreg R, 4' diam. Resolved into small stars with nebulous light." That is a perfect description of NGC 1919, a cluster immersed in a reflection nebula. Is it possible that JH missed the stars the first time around? ===== NGC 1919 may also be NGC 1915, which see. ===== NGC 1920. See NGC 1911. ===== NGC 1927. JH has one observation that reads "All about this place (05 26 20, -08 24.9; B1950.0), there exists diffused nebulosity." In fact, there is none. Dreyer comments in a Note to the NGC, "Looked for three times at Birr Castle; twice the sky was fancied to have a milky appearance." There is certainly no nebulosity on the POSS1 plates, nor on the SERC EJ plate. Also, JH originally made this an observation of his father's V 38: that identity is shown in his 1833 catalogue. However, his position differed enough from WH's that he made them separate objects for GC; Dreyer followed suit for NGC. There, H V 38 = NGC 1909 (which see). In short, NGC 1927 is "Not found." ===== NGC 1932 and NGC 1933. JH found a faint nebula -- actually a compact star cluster in the LMC -- here, and observed it four times. His mean position is just a few arcsec from the center of the cluster, which ended up with 1933 as its NGC number. On the last night JH observed N1933, he also noticed a very faint, very small nebulous object 80 arcsec west of his brighter object. When reducing his observations, he noted it "curious" that he picked up this fainter object only once. The object turns out to be a 13th magnitude star, though other fainter stars in the area may contribute to its nebulous appearance. Lauberts, of course, found only one non-stellar object in the area, so assumed that N1932 = N1933. This incorrect equality is noted in ESO. ===== NGC 1933. See NGC 1932. ===== NGC 1935 is also IC 2126, which see. It is a small HII region in the LMC, found by JH, who measured it in four sweeps. He noted it as part of a group of nebulae and clusters. ===== NGC 1936 = IC 2127, which see, is another of the HII regions in this part of the LMC found by JH. He has it in six different sweeps, and his position is very good. ===== NGC 1938 is an open cluster in the LMC situated just 0.7 arcmin northwest of NGC 1939, a globular cluster. ESO did not give separate coordinates so I've adopted that for NGC 1939 from GSC and have measured the offset to N1938 from the brighter cluster. JH's position and descriptions are good, though he did not resolve either cluster. In particular, his micrometric measurement of the offset of N1938 from N1939 (distance = 50 arcsec, PA = 339.1 degrees) is very good. ===== NGC 1939. See NGC 1938. ===== NGC 1952 = M 1 = The Crab Nebula. This is the prototypical supernova remnant (from SN 1054), and is now a large, bright nebula. I have adopted the position of the pulsar near its center as the nebula's position as well. The pulsar, by the way, is the southern of the two stars of similar brightness near the nebula's center. There is evidence, however, that in this case at least, the star has a large proper motion -- it is no longer at the center of the nebulosity implied by the measured expansion of the knots and filaments, but is several arcsec to the northwest. This is taken as evidence for an asymmetric supernova explosion which gave the star a powerful kick and set it off at high velocity. In spite of all this, I'm sticking with the position of the pulsar as the center of the nebula for the time being. Perhaps I'll change my mind in a few thousand years when the star is well away from the center of the expanding gas cloud that Messier placed first in his famous list. ===== NGC 1963 is an apparent cluster of about 20 stars, roughly arranged in the shape of the number 3 (JH describes it that way, and it still appears that way on the southern sky survey -- and on the southern sky for that matter). PGC and RC3 are clearly wrong in using the number for the bright spindle galaxy which is really IC 2135 = IC 2136. ESO, however, got it right. See IC 2136 for more. ===== NGC 1976 = M 42. I have adopted the position of the Trapezium as the position of M42. This helps us avoid the problem of trying to decide on a geometric center for the nebula. See also NGC 1982 = M 43 and IC 429 for other notes about the Orion Nebula and the large, complex region of star formation around it. ===== NGC 1982 = M 43. For this, and many other emission or reflection nebulae with clearly identified embedded stars, I have adopted the position of the star as that for the entire nebula. This follows the precedent set by the visual discovers who noticed that many of the nebulae are usually (though not always) brightest in the vicinity of the stars. There is a curiosity in the NGC listing for M 43. WH's first "Very Faint" nebula is in the vicinity, so GC and NGC suggest that it might be equivalent. This probably bothered Dreyer a bit, as he added a note to WH's observation when he edited the Complete Papers: "III 1 is an appendage to the north of M43." WH's own observation seems to support this, and it is well-known, too, that he tried to not include any of Messier's nebulae or clusters in his own lists (though several did creep in, including M8, M20, and M82). ===== NGC 1985 has been called a planetary nebula in the past, but is now generally accepted as a reflection nebula. There are several other such nebulae nearby, including UGC 03327 = MCG +05-14-001. In spite of its inclusion in two galaxy catalogues, that object is almost certainly a nebula within the Milky Way Galaxy. One or the other of these two, N1985 or U3327, is included in van den Bergh's 1966 catalogue of Galactic reflection nebulae. I've not checked yet, so it may be possible that that entry refers to both objects as well as to the other fainter reflection nebulae in the field. ===== NGC 1988. Suspected of variability by its discoverer (Chacornac, in 1855), this has never been seen by any other observer. Dreyer has a brief history in the NGC Notes. The NGC position comes from GC where JH gives a source as "Les Mondes, No. 9." This was apparently a short-lived journal or newsletter; there is no trace of it in the indexes of major astronomical libraries in the US, nor in the library of the Paris Observatory. Fortunately, Chacornac also published his position in Comptes Rendus 56, 637, 1863, a publication which is still very much with us. The only things in the area on the POSS1 are two or three stars. Chacornac's accurate position corresponds to the western-most of the the stars, a 10th magnitude object with two much fainter companions just a few arcsec east. My guess is that the "object" was perhaps a reflection or flare from zeta Tauri which is only 5 arcmin to the southeast, possibly enhanced by the faint stars around the 10th magnitude "primary." ===== NGC 1990. In spite of this nebulosity having been "seen" by WH, JH, and Dreyer, as well as by several amateurs in recent years, there is no trace of it on any photograph of the area. JH suggested that the nebulosity extends at least 12 arcmin north and south of Epsilon Orionis, while Dreyer makes it more extensive to the south. (On the POSS1 red plate, the star is apparently close to the center of an extended, striated nebulosity. This, however, is not visible on any other photo, including several color photos that would certainly show a red nebulosity if it existed. This striation is a defect on the red plate, apparently caused by imperfections or reflections in the red Plexiglass filter.) It is just possible that this may be another case like IC 349 (which see) which is so close to Merope as to be not easily imaged. Until Eps Ori is imaged in such a way that the star can be removed to show the nebulosity that the Herschels and Dreyer claimed to have seen, I have no choice but to call NGC 1990 an illusion. Also see NGC 7088 for another well-known case of an illusory nebula "seen" by many experienced observers. ===== NGC 1995 is a double star, seen only once by JH. It is about two arcmin west-northwest of NGC 1998; JH's position is within 25 arcsec of the GSC position of the brighter of the stars, so the identity is certain. ===== NGC 1996. Another of RNGC's "nonexistent" clusters, this is clearly apparent on the POSS1, and is centered just an arcminute east of the NGC position. The 30 or so stars are scattered over an area of about 15 arcmin by 10 arcmin (the long axis is at PA = about 20 degrees). But is it a real cluster? To answer that, of course, will take a study of the area, with proper motions and photometry for the suspect stars. ===== NGC 1998. See NGC 1995. ===== NGC 2039 (= h 366) was described by JH as "A large tract of stars filling many fields. It extends much further in RA." He has a second concordant observation: "A large ill-defined tract of loose stars, neither rich nor condensed," though for this one, he made an estimate of only the NPD. Just such a configuration, roughly 30 arcmin across in RA and 10 arcmin in Dec, is centered two or three arcmin north-northwest of JH's single position. It is a well-scattered group of about 30 stars ranging in magnitude from 8 to 13. I doubt very much that it is a true cluster. However, JH called this H VIII 2 in both observations in his 1833 catalogue. That this is probably not the case was realized by JH himself as H VIII 2 (NGC 2063, which see) and h 366 were given separate GC numbers. WH described his object as "A small cluster of very small scattered stars" and gave it a position (from two observations) nearly 3 minutes of time following and 8 arcmin north of JH's later position for h 366. Dreyer followed GC, but neither he nor JH mention the initial confusion of the two objects. ===== NGC 2045 = Lalande 10842 = SAO 094827. JH has this simply as "A star 8-9 mag with faint nebulosity." It is barely possible that there is indeed a bit of faint nebulosity around the star, but it is very difficult to see on the POSS1. ===== NGC 2054 is a group of 6 faint stars found by George P. Bond, then director of Harvard College Observatory. In his small "Comet-seeker," the grouping appeared nebulous, and he gave it only an approximate position. Dreyer himself saw the nebula and commented, "... at times, I thought it was a very small cluster, but it is doubtful." Nevertheless, he gave an accurate micrometric measurement of a star, 9-10th magnitude, in position angle 0.5 degrees and distance 404.0 arcsec. The star is indeed there, and was later seen by Howe (MN 58, 515, 1898) who misattributed it to Bond, but saw only "three small stars" in the place. Bigourdan provided a corrected position for the asterism, quoted by Dreyer in IC2. ===== NGC 2063 may be the small grouping of 7-8 faint stars at WH's place, though there is another larger clump with brighter stars about 8 arcmin to the south-southeast. Neither is likely to be a true cluster, and I am not sure that either one is the correct object. Taking WH at his word, though, I've tentatively assigned the NGC number to the stars at his place. JH did not see this clump, but mistakenly asigned the number H VIII 2 to h 366 (= NGC 2039, which see) in his 1833 catalogue. He separated the two objects for the GC, and Dreyer followed his lead. ===== NGC 2064. See NGC 2067. ===== NGC 2067 is a part of the large complex of nebulae around M78 = N2068. Found by Tempel, neither the position nor the description makes it really clear which part of the nebula he saw. The first position I give in the main table is for a large patch of pretty low surface brightness nebulosity about 5 arcmin northwest of M78. But this is not the brightest nebulosity in the area. That is a knot about 3 arcmin southwest, the brightest part of a long faint streamer pointed toward NGC 2064. This, however, is much more east than north of M78, while Tempel says that M78 is to the south. So, a bit of a mystery here -- which part of the nebulosity was Tempel refering to? I've stuck with the larger more northerly end of the nebula, but could well be wrong, so have also put the southern knot in the main table. ===== NGC 2068 = M 78. See NGC 2067. ===== NGC 2132 may be a cluster centered a few arcmin following JH's position. That position applies to the "Chief * of a cluster of 8th class of about a dozen bright and some smaller stars." This is just what we see on the sky today. The stars are scattered over an area of 17 arcmin by 11 arcmin. They stand out enough from the field that I'm a bit surprised that Lauberts did not pick them up for the ESO list. JH's "chief star", by the way, is SAO 234207 which is within a few arcsec of his position for it. ===== NGC 2139 = IC 2154. Dreyer has a note in his 1912 edition of WH's Scientific Papers on this object. Taken from WH's note in the sweep, it reads "The A.R. cannot be above 10 or 15 s out; the roller went off the apparatus which occasions the uncertainty." The RA is actually 24 seconds out, and the dec, due to another unspecified error, is 8.5 arcmin off. Dreyer was further able to identify a star in the sweep that was closer to the galaxy than WH's "official" reference star, delta Canis Majoris. Comparison with this star led to the correct position. However, he had not yet done this when Howe and Bigourdan tried to find the NGC object near WH's place -- not surprisingly, neither succeeded. What is surprising is that when Lewis Swift came across the galaxy over a century after WH, he did not make as nearly as large an error in its position as WH. Swift's positions from his last nights in 1897 and 1898 at Lowe Observatory on Echo Mountain are nortoriously bad. But for this object, he actually came within 14 seconds in RA and 1 arcmin in Dec. Herbert Howe pinned the galaxy down with a micrometric observation and it was that position that Dreyer adopted for IC 2154. Dreyer himself discovered the identity when he fixed WH's position for the NGC object. ===== NGC 2142 = 3 Moncerotis = SAO 151037. JH says, "I am sure this star has a faint nebulous atmosphere 2 or 3 arcmin in diameter. Eye-glass examined, not dewed." This brightest part of the nebulosity is lost in the glare of the star on the POSS1, but a very faintly extended cloud can just be seen on the red plate. It would be nice to have independent confirmation of this. ===== NGC 2143. This is a cluster of pretty bright (V ~ 9 - 13) stars covering an area about 12 arcmin by 10 arcmin across. While JH puts the center close to the brightest star (SAO 113401), I make it (on the POSS1 print) about three arcmin to the west. Brian Skiff puts the center (using the DSS) seven arcmin to the north, nearly on the edge of the cluster. This must be a typo of some sort. A curiosity: JH's original description contained the note, "... place of a * 10m in M." Somehow, this metamorphosed into "stars 10" in GC and NGC. This may have led in part to RNGC's failure to find the cluster. ===== NGC 2163. The NGC NPD is incorrect, being one of Dreyer's very few transcription errors. He corrects the mistake in the IC2 Notes. The object is a striking example of a bi-polar nebula with fans of nebulosity extending north and south from the central star. Stephan's position is good. ===== NGC 2167 is probably SAO 132848; it is certainly not H IV 44. This error comes from JH who equated his own h378 with his father's "planetary" more than 10 arcmin south-following his (JH's) position. Dreyer followed JH in NGC, but when he prepared WH's papers for their re-publication in 1912, he realized that WH's description as well as position did not agree with JH's. Dreyer gives some additional information in his note in WH's Scientific Papers, and also suggests there that WH actually observed a nebulous star about 70 seconds of time following JH's position. This suggestion was the source of my own comment in the preliminary version of ESGC that the RA of N2167 is 1 minute of time too small. I think now that Dreyer and I were wrong. The description of IV 44 fits IV 19 = NGC 2170 very nicely, and the RA's are the same. The Dec's are about 8 arcmin different, and IV 19 was not seen in the sweep in which IV 44 was found. Therefore, it is likely that the only error in NGC is calling N2167 "IV 44." Is there, however, a problem with JH's observation? The star at his position has almost no trace of nebulosity around it. Yet JH does not mark the position as uncertain, and that position is within 20 arcsec of the true position of the star. And JH calls it a "star 7 m;" its V magnitude is 6.9. By contrast, the star in NGC 2170 is 9th magnitude, and the star that Dreyer suggested as IV 44 is 11th magnitude. Perhaps there is a trace of nebulosity hiding in the overexposed image of the bright star. A close visual examination is needed. ===== NGC 2170. See NGC 2167. ===== NGC 2171 is lost. JH describes it as "eeF, vL, R, glbM, 4'" in a single observation. Wolfgang gives the nominal position and says "Not found." The object marked in the Hodge-Wright Atlas is a faint star about 2 arcmin south of JH's; ESO apparently adopted this identification, too. The only possibility that I can see is that JH made a 10 or 20 minute error in his RA, and that his observation applies to one of the star clouds in the eastern end of the LMC's bar. However, this is such a stretch that I'm not going to list any of these star clouds in the main table. ===== NGC 2174 is one of the knots in NGC 2175, which see. ===== NGC 2175 is a very large roughly circular emission nebula which also includes NGC 2174 and IC 2159 (both of which see), and a star cluster which has inherited the NGC number, though there is no mention of it in the discovery notes. The nebula is centered on SAO 078049, though the brightest knot (which Bigourdan took for N2175; hence, the "corrected" RA in the IC2 Notes) is about three arcmin to the west-northwest. Auwers's note makes it clear that NGC 2175 is much more than just the knot: he gives dimensions of 25 arcmin by 8 arcmin, and specifically adopts the position of Lalande 11668 = SAO 078049 as that for the object. I have followed his lead. ===== NGC 2189 is described by J.H. Safford as "Two clusters, seen 1863 March 19 near two stars of the 10-11th magnitude" with the "Great Refractor" at Harvard College Observatory. (The NGC description confuses the stars with two others in Safford's description of another cluster NGC 2198, which see). Curiously, he gives positions of the two stars, but not of the clusters. So, we can identify the stars with certainty (Safford's positions, precessed to B1950.0, are 06 09 15, +01 07.7 and 06 10 17, +01 09.0), but not the clusters -- there is nothing in the area aside from random clumpings of field stars. However, two of the clumpings -- listed in the main table as possibly being the correct objects -- may be the one's Safford noted. Both are extended roughly north-south, with the first having a diameter of about 6 x 3 arcmin and including only a dozen stars, and the second 3 x 2 arcmin, again with only a dozen stars, fainter than those in the first group. Neither is likely to be a real cluster. Are these the right objects? We need observations, and a look at Safford's original observing records, to be sure. ===== NGC 2195 is a double star; there are two fainter stars near to the north that may have added to the illusion of nebulosity. The object was found by J. G. Lohse who also noted the 10th magnitude star 31 arcsec north. It is this star that clinches the identification since Lohse's RA is about 3 arcmin too far west. RNGC picked the wrong object. ===== NGC 2198. Described as "A cluster, seen 1863 March 19 by J.H. Safford, between two stars ... With the Great Refractor" at Harvard, the NGC position actually corresponds to a field with fewer than the average numbers of stars. As with NGC 2189 (which see) Safford measured the two stars (one is 10-11 magnitude at 06 10 57, +01 00.1; the other is 9-10 magnitude at 06 11 42, +00 59.3, both for B1950.0), but not the cluster. I see nothing in the field on the POSS1 prints that looks like a cluster. Perhaps a visual observation can turn up something. ===== NGC 2218 is only an asterism of four stars. It is one of the "nebulae" recorded in the Markree Catalogue, pulled out by Auwers in his 1862 compilation of the nebulae found by others than the Herschels. Auwers looked for it, but had to note "Invisible in the Heliometer." The original position is good. ===== NGC 2224 is perhaps the elongated gathering of stars centered about three arcmin southwest of the NGC position. It looks to me like a random fluctuation in the Milky Way, though it is overlain by an extremely diffuse band of nebulosity. This area should be examined telescopically -- the POSS is crowded with faint stars. ===== NGC 2225 and NGC 2226 have sometimes been considered to be the same object. In fact, the latter number refers to the compact core of the cluster, apparently unresolved in the 5- or 6-inch refractor with which Barnard found it. He described it as "Small, very difficult, with a star 10 close south" (the star is there). This is apparently from a letter to Dreyer as the observation does not appear in the Sidereal Messenger where Barnard published other of his early nebular discoveries. ===== NGC 2226. See NGC 2225. ===== NGC 2234 is described by both WH and JH as a very large cluster, at least half a degree across. I find three concentrations of stars in the area, the first at 06 25.4 +16 42, the second at 06 26.5 +16 45, and the third at 06 27.4 +16 30. Perhaps the Herschels' observations refer to all three. As with so many of the poor, scattered "clusters" found by them, telescopic observations will be needed for conformation. ===== NGC 2237, 2238, and 2246 are all parts of the large annular HII region often called the Rosette. Embedded in the middle of the nebula is a bright cluster of young stars, NGC 2239 = NGC 2244 (which see) discovered by WH, and observed again by JH. Albert Marth is apparently the first to see any part of the nebulosity (NGC 2238, which see), though Lewis Swift was the first to call attention to its great size. Barnard ran across the nebula independently in 1883 while sweeping for comets, and his observations inspired Swift to finally publish a note about it in 1884. Scanning the area again in 1886, Swift found part of the eastern side of the nebula (NGC 2246, which see), but it was not until Barnard began his photographic work at Lick in the early 1890s that the full extent of the nebula became known. The position for NGC 2237 given by Swift in his second list of nebulae actually comes from Barnard, though it is about 45 seconds of time west of the center of gravity of the western part of the Rosette to which it refers. Barnard's description is accurate, however, and there is no question as to which part of the nebulosity he saw. ===== NGC 2238 is a small patch of somewhat brighter nebulosity in the much larger Rosette Nebula. It was found by Marth in 1864 with Lasalle's 48-inch reflector, which probably accounts for Marth's ability to see the faint star embedded in the knot. See NGC 2237 and NGC 2239 for more on the Rosette. ===== NGC 2239 = NGC 2244, the bright young cluster in the center of the HII region called the Rosette (see the discussion under NGC 2237), was found by WH. JH recovered it 30 years later during his northern sweeps from Slough, though he made an error of 1 minute of time in the position. Neither noticed the nebulosity around the cluster; that remained for Marth, Swift, and Barnard to bring to our attention. ===== NGC 2242. See IC 2170. ===== NGC 2244 = NGC 2239, which see. ===== NGC 2246 is a brighter patch of nebulosity in the eastern side of the Rosette first seen by Swift in 1886; see NGC 2237 and NGC 2239 for more on the discovery of this remarkable object. ===== NGC 2248. This asterism of nine stars was recorded in the Markree Catalogue where it remained essentially unnoticed until Auwers reobserved it in the late 1850s. He included it in his 1862 list of nebulae and clusters found by observers other than the Herschels, and JH picked it up there for the GC. The original position is good. ===== NGC 2250 is placed 1 minute of time too far west in RNGC and in the Alter and Ruprecht star cluster catalogue. JH recorded as the position that of the 8th magnitude star we now call SAO 133414, though that is on the eastern side of the cluster. The approximate center is about three arcminutes west-southwest of that star. ===== NGC 2253 can't be found. There is nothing at W. Herschel's position (06 36.8 +66 53, 1950), nor is there much to suggest a systematic error in the positions of the other objects found that night (NGC 2347 = III 746, though see this for some confusion; and NGC 2403 = V 44). Herschel's description -- "A vF patch or S cl of eS st(ars)" -- as well as the fact that he included this object in his class VII (number 54) suggests that we should be looking for a small, tight group of faint stars. There is a scattered group of (10 or 15 stars of magnitudes 14 to 16) at 06 37.4 +66 22 (1950), but it is not a "patch" by any stretch of the definition of that word. Herschel's description might just as well fit UGC 3511 (06 38 45.8 +65 15 22, 1950), a rather patchy late-type spiral galaxy, but the position is off by random amounts in both coordinates. Similarly, the CGCG object at 06 38.2 +65 43 (1950) is probably not WH's object. Since there are no reasonable solutions that we can easily see, we'll just have to let NGC 2253 be "Not found" for the time being. ===== NGC 2254. The NGC RA for this cluster is 10 seconds of time too far west. While that may be an error in reduction of WH's or JH's observations, it could also simply be a statistical fluke. ===== NGC 2261 is often called "Hubble's Variable Nebula" as its variability was indeed first noticed by Hubble during his years at Yerkes Observatory. The nebula was discovered, though, by WH in 1783, and is the second of his new class of "planetary" nebulae. We know now that the nebulosity is actually enveloping a very young double star system, R Monocerotis. The star's variability was first noted by Schmidt (AN 55, 91, 1861). The variability of the nebula is probably the result of circumstellar clouds close to the stars casting shadows on the surrounding nebulosity. NGC 1554/5 (which see) around T Tauri is another example. ===== NGC 2265 appears to be no more than a random grouping of stars. On the POSS, it is an elongated group of 12th to 14th magnitude stars about 10 x 5 arcmin in size, centered about three arcmin southwest of JH's position. ===== NGC 2270. Found by WH who called it "A cluster of very scattered stars, considerably rich and of very great extent," this appears on the POSS as an irregularly scattered grouping of about 50 stars centered about 2 arcmin north of the NGC position. About 12 arcmin north and 4 arcmin west is another similar group of stars. Could this second group be the reason WH noted the "very great extent" of the object? ===== NGC 2274 and NGC 2275. The UGC and MCG identifications of this close pair are opposite one another. This has happened in at least two other cases: NGC 980 and 982 where there is indeed an error in the NGC declination for one object, and NGC 5216 and 5218 where there is only a small error in John Herschel's 1833 list and the reversal of the identifications in MCG. The NGC, however, is correct in this second case (see the discussions of these objects for the details). In the case of N2274 and N2275, there is indeed an error in the NGC, but it is such a trivial one that I doubt that it led to the MCG reversal (it is indeed MCG that is incorrect here): the numbers from William Herschel's catalogue are reversed. JH got them right in his 1833 catalogue (and the GC) when he listed them under h406 = H II 614 and h407 = H II 615. Dreyer, too, got them right when he republished William's Scientific Papers in 1912, but did not mention the earlier mistake in his errata list of that year. In the end, it is clear that NGC 2274 is the southern and very slightly preceding of the two. The MCG identifications should be switched. ===== NGC 2275. See NGC 2274. ===== NGC 2277 is an asterism of five faint stars. It was found by d'A as he reobserved the interesting area containing NGC 2274, 2275, and the NGC 2290 group. Apparently observing on a poor night, or anxious to increase the number of nebulae in the area, he also found three other asterisms here (NGC 2278, 2284, and 2285, which see). ===== NGC 2278 is a double star found by d'A. Bigourdan reobserved it, and found a companion asterism nearby, NGC 2279 (which see). See also NGC 2277. ===== NGC 2279 is a triple star found by Bigourdan while he was measuring the previously discovered nebulae and asterisms in the area. See NGC 2277 for more. ===== NGC 2283 may also be IC 2171, which see. ===== NGC 2284 is an asterism, probably comprised of the four stars noted in the table, but perhaps the triple 2 arcmin southeast. It was found by d'A in the area between the NGC 2274 group and the NGC 2290 group. See also N2277 and N2285. ===== NGC 2285 is a double star. See NGC 2277 and NGC 2285. ===== NGC 2290 is the brightest of a group of galaxies. There are several asterisms in the area, too (see e.g. NGC 2277, 2278, 2284, and 2285). ===== NGC 2296 = IC 452, which see. This, by the way, is a Galactic diffuse nebula, not a galaxy. ===== NGC 2299 is probably the same cluster as NGC 2302. JH saw the cluster we now call N2299 only once, and noted its position as uncertain in both coordinates. his description reads, "A coarse cluster, not very rich; 30 or 40 stars; probably only an outlying portion of VIII 39"; this could easily match N2302. His three accordant observations of N2302 are all in other sweeps. Had the two clusters been seen on the same night, I would not have entertained thoughts about equating the objects. As is, however, I think it's likely that the two numbers refer to the same object. ===== NGC 2302 probably = NGC 2299, which see. ===== NGC 2306 is probably a rich portion of the Milky Way. Neither WH nor JH seemed mightily impressed with it. JH in particular thought it simply a concentration of stars rather than a true cluster. Examining the POSS1, I thought it might be identical to NGC 2309 which is 1.5 minutes of time to the east. However, JH saw both objects in the same three sweeps: his concurrent observations rule out an equality. The "object" I've chosen as N2306 appears on the POSS1 as an elongated cloud of stars, magnitudes 10-13, roughly 20 arcmin by 10 arcmin, with the long axis in position angle 70 deg. The position in the table is just an arcmin southwest of JH's position, adopted for GC and NGC. ===== NGC 2319. This object has a curious history. Before I get into that, however, I should say that I've finally assigned the number to h 423 which JH describes as a "Linear cluster of stars, forming a bent line nearly 15 arcmin long, terminated on the following side by a star 8 ..." He calls the cluster "VIII 1," though it is not (more below). The position I've assigned (06 57 55, +03 06.8; 1950) is for the mid-point of the chain, rather than that of JH's 8th magnitude star (he gives 06 58 31, +03 07.9 -- also 1950 -- less than an arcmin from the true position), so the RA is well off JH's, though the object is clearly the one that he saw. For the GC, he used his own position for the object rather than his father's (for reasons apparent below), and Dreyer did the same for NGC. This leads us unambiguously to JH's "bent line" as NGC 2319. Curiously and perhaps unfortunately, both JH in GC and Dreyer in NGC also assigned an unusual WH number to the object: VIII 1B. There is no VIII 1A, and VIII 1B turns out to have nothing to do with VIII 1 (which is NGC 2509) except that it follows the first entry chronologically in WH's list of scattered clusters. So, to the history. Dreyer has a short note in the NGC, beginning with JH's note in the GC: "Entered by CH as VIII 1B, with a remark `not in print.' -- JH." Dreyer continues, "It must be a very poor cluster; at any rate, Auwers could not find anything like a cluster in this place." Dreyer inserts VIII 1B in his 1912 edition of WH's first catalogue with an extensive note giving some of the details of WH's Sweep 48 on 18 December 1783. In short, WH's observation puts the cluster around 1950.0 RA = 06 45.3, and between +02 06 and +03 21. He describes it as "A cluster of very small stars, not rich." This is obviously too far off JH's position to be the same object, so I am wondering how JH arrived at the identity. In any case, there is no obvious cluster matching both WH's position and his description. Two objects partially match, however: Collinder 115 (at 06 44 03, +01 49.4 for 1950) matches the description, but is well off in position. A scattered group of 9th to 12th magnitude stars at 06 44 52, +03 08.0 comes closer to the position, but the stars -- particularly the 9th magnitude star near the center -- are too bright to appear "very small" to WH. I see nothing else that could be WH's cluster. In the end, H VIII 1B remains a footnote, unidentified and probably unidentifiable (though a careful scrutiny of the Herschel Archive might turn up more information than Dreyer found -- but that's unlikely in my opinion). It's connection with NGC 2319 is a mistake by JH and Dreyer, and it has no other NGC number. ===== NGC 2326. This was originally found by William Herschel who describes it as "F, pL, iF, mbM. South-following a triangle of small [faint] stars." JH looked at it a quarter of a century later and noted: "eF, R, pslbM; has a small group of stars immediately preceding like the letter Y." The J2000.0 position from the Bologna group is 07 08 11.1, +50 40 53 which is in the right direction from the NGC 2000.0 position to agree with the position measured by Glen Deen in the course of his work on MicroSky. The group of stars just west, shaped like the letter Y, clinches the identification, even if the NGC position (from the Herschels) is not too good. ===== NGC 2327 is a compact HII region, or part of one, in the large, sinuous nebula found by Max Wolf south of IC 2177, which see. ===== NGC 2330 and NGC 2334. Malcolm has not been happy with my assignments of NGC 2330 and NGC 2334 to IC 457 and IC 465. After going over all of the extant historical evidence once again, I'm not happy, either. But I'm not sure what to do about it. Here's the story. WH swept over this field twice, finding -- so he thought -- two nebulae, II 736 (on 9 Feb 1788) and II 862 (on 28 Dec 1790). His positions reduce to 07 07 21, +50 14.2 and 07 07 03, +50 14.4 (both for B1950.0). Since NGC 2332 is well over a minute of time preceding either of these, I think that both observations refer to NGC 2340. That galaxy is, in any case, the brightest in the group. WH's descriptions are consistent with his observations refering to the same galaxy. When JH swept up the field about 35 years later, he picked up NGC 2340 twice and NGC 2332 once. His positions and descriptions match the two galaxies well, so there is no reason to doubt that he actually did see both. After another 25 year gap, Lord Rosse turned his 72-inch "Leviathan" on the field. Unfortunately, the three sketches he made during his first two observations in January of 1851 did not appear in his 1861 monograph. He had only a short note under his entry for h 430, "Several knots around; 430 is E np, sf" (the directions should read "sp, nf"). So, when JH assembled the GC, he had only this scanty note on which to base the entry for GC 1492. Consequently, the position for GC 1492 is very rough (06 58+-, 39 36+-; RA and NPD for 1860), and the description reads only "Several near h 430 (?426, 433, & 1 nov[a])." When Dreyer was preparing LdR's observations for publication, he transcribed the details missing from the 1861 monograph, giving us the first two night's notes and sketches. Unfortunately, the arrows in the sketches are pointing in the wrong directions, and (as I noted) north and south are reversed in the notes for the first night's observations of NGC 2332 = h 430. I think that the first two sketches must come from only the first night: one shows NGC 2332 and a new nebula, with the second showing NGC 2340 and another nova. I also think that these are the objects which Dreyer intended to include in the NGC. This is the reason that I earlier adopted the NGC numbers 2330 and 2334 for them, in spite of the large differences in position from the NGC positions (from Bigourdan's observations; more on these below). The notes for LdR's second night refer to five novae, as well as the two known objects. A third sketch -- apparently from that night -- shows a total of nine nebulae. A third observation in 1863 refers to only six of these, with Dreyer adding the comment, "Zeta, iota, and theta not noticed this night." This is understandable as LdR says "A fog prevented these being well seen." In any event, Dreyer clearly had evidence for nine nebulae in the field, yet chose to include NGC numbers for only four. Perhaps he did this because he thought he had good positions for only those four -- two from JH via the GC, and two from Bigourdan for two of the "novae." However, given the confusion of the directions in the sketches and the observing notes, Dreyer was unable to sort out the field satisfactorily. So, he put question marks on LdR's initials under the numbers 2330 and 2334, adopting Bigourdan's positions published in his (Bigourdan's) first list. Dreyer could have inserted numbers for the remaining five nebulae, trusting to future observers to provide good positions, but unfortunately, did not. It is here that Bigourdan's complete observations could have provided positions for most of LdR's novae, had he (Bigourdan) chosen to publish them before the NGC appeared. For, on two nights in November of 1885, Bigourdan measured eight novae of his own, including six real nebulae, in addition to the two known nebulae. Unfortunately, he chose to publish only two of his novae. By startlingly bad luck, the two he did publish are stars. The six real galaxies remain buried in his massive tables of observational details and did not appear until 1907 in the Observations of Paris Observatory. Consequently, Dreyer put the two stars, with Bigourdan's positions and descriptions, into the NGC. While his clear intent was to include two of LdR's nebulae, he just as clearly -- with Bigourdan's unknowing assistance -- botched the job. So, what do we do with the two errant NGC numbers? If we assign them to the stars which Bigourdan's positions and descriptions point at, we do Dreyer's intentions (and JH's in the GC as well) a misservice. If, on the other hand, we assign them to the two novae that LdR found in 1851 (IC 457 and IC 465), then we incur Malcolm's wrath and my own furrowed brow. My solution is to adopt both options with lots of question marks, knowing full well that neither is satisfactory. Dreyer has simply not left us enough information to make any clear choice. As a footnote, I should mention that Heinrich Kobold also stumbled across this problem in 1893. He published a short note in AN 3184 with good positions for NGC 2332, 2340, and nine other nebulae which he assumed included those found by Lord Rosse. However, he could not find Bigourdan's two published novae (the ones with NGC numbers). Dreyer put all of Kobold's novae into the first IC, and included a note reporting Kobold's negative observations of the two NGC numbers. Finally, a footnote to the footnote: Kobold published his complete observations in the Strassburg Annalen in 1909. There, he has two observations of I459, but has reversed the signs on the offsets for one of them. He apparently discovered this before he published his short announcement in AN, so he did not publish a non-existent object (one object, IC 462, is a star, however). Since his monograph was published long after the observations, and long after he found the error, it's puzzling that he should let the mistake stand. The fact that the wrong signs are not just typos is shown by his including the second observation as if it were for another object. Also, his summary list of reduced positions includes only the IC objects (with the correct number of observations for each), so the decision to publish the incorrect observations is doubly puzzling. I certainly wouldn't have done it that way! ===== NGC 2331 is a large, scattered cluster of pretty bright stars. There is a concentration of several stars on the southeast edge that attracted JH's attention enough that he took it as the position for the whole object. Thus, the position in the main table is about 8 arcmin northwest of the NGC place, copied directly from GC and JH. A curious footnote to this object is in the "Other Observers" column in the NGC: "Flamsteed." I do not know yet why Dreyer credited Flamsteed with the discovery -- there is no mention of the object in Kenneth Glyn Jones's fine book, "The Search for the Nebulae." According to Glyn Jones, Flamsteed did find several other objects in the area, including M41 and NGC 2244. But this cluster is missing from his catalogue and atlas. ===== NGC 2332. See NGC 2330. ===== NGC 2334. See NGC 2330. ===== NGC 2338 is probably the cluster about 50 seconds following and 5.5 arcmin south of JH's place. Brian Skiff and I independently found the cluster looking for N2338; it matches JH's description "Very loose and straggling cluster" pretty well, and is as good a candidate as any. ===== NGC 2340. See NGC 2330. ===== NGC 2343. See NGC 2351. ===== NGC 2347 and IC 2179. On 1 Nov 1788, William Herschel found a "vF, S, R, lbM" nebula 01h 04m 05s following, 48' south of 36 Camelopardalis (the observation is from Dreyer's 1912 collection of Herschel's papers). This position reduces to 07 11 54, +65 06 using the SAO position of 36 Cam (proper motion changes its precessed position by about 5 arcsec between 1788 and 1950, a negligible amount considering the mean errors of a few arcmin in WH's positions). The GC/NGC position precesses to 07 11 31, +64 54. Since no other reference for the position is given, I suspect that JH must have used a later unpublished observation from his father's records. The NGC position falls about 6 arcmin north-following a 13th magnitude spiral galaxy (at 07 11 15.9, +64 47 57) which is usually taken as NGC 2347. However, 9 arcmin south-preceding the NGC position is a smaller, but equally bright -- therefore, higher surface brightness -- S0 galaxy. This was found by Bigourdan while he was searching the area of N2347, and is in IC2 as IC 2179. The position there is within 2 arcmin of the correct position (07 10 42.6, +65 00 49). Is this possibly the object that WH saw? Bigourdan apparently thought so, since he assigned the number "NGC 2347" to his observations of this smaller galaxy. However, he lists SA0 14129 as his comparison star. Using the 1950 position for this, we find a position for the galaxy of 07 11 26.5, +64 52 11, quite close to the NGC position for N2347. This certainly explains Bigourdan's choice of this object for N2347. If we look at this position on the sky, however, we find nothing at all. But applying Bigourdan's offsets to the position for BD +65 560 = GSC 4119-00435 (a star about a magnitude fainter, but still bright), we land exactly on IC 2179. But Bigourdan's observations, referred to SAO 14129, of what he calls "IC 2179," point exactly to the spiral usually called N2347. Thus, it's clear that not only has Bigourdan misidentified his comparison star for I2179, he has also switched the two catalogue numbers. But where did the correct IC position come from? Since Bigourdan published his "new" nebulae in several short lists in Comptes Rendus, Dreyer most likely took the position from there. However, in his collected lists of "novae" in the introduction to his observations, Bigourdan prints the incorrect position given in the observations themselves. At the moment, I don't see a reasonable answer to the problem. Until more information surfaces, we will retain the usual identifications for the two galaxies: NGC 2347 is the south-following spiral, and IC 2179 is the north-preceding lenticular. See also the additional discussion under IC 2179. ===== NGC 2349. This cluster was found by CH in 1783, and later catalogued by WH as VII 27. Their object, centered near 07 08 24, -08 30.6 (less than 30 arcsec from where they put it), is easily identified by the "extending branch towards the south-preceding." JH, however, called it a "poor straggling cluster," and took its position as that of a double star some 50 seconds west of the object observed by his father and his aunt. He adopted this position for GC, and Dreyer followed suit for the NGC. He must not have seen the same cluster as his father and aunt, however -- the positions and descriptions disagree too much. ===== NGC 2351. There is nothing in JH's position, but one degree north is a group of three bright and several faint stars that could be the object he saw. I'm frankly not too happy with this idea, but there isn't much else going. Other possibilities: this object may be a duplicated observation of NGC 2343 or NGC 2353, though neither one has a position with an obvious digit change that might point to NGC 2351. ===== NGC 2353. See NGC 2351. ===== NGC 2355. See NGC 2356. ===== NGC 2356 is most likely NGC 2355 with a 10 arcmin error in declination. There is no other group of stars in the area that fits WH's description "A pretty rich and compressed cluster of stars" as well. JH did not see NGC 2356, but found NGC 2355 easily. Note, too, that WH's position for N2355 is about 1m 40s too far west; Dreyer discusses the circumstances of WH's observation of N2355 a bit more in his 1912 edition of WH's papers. ===== NGC 2358. Seen only once by WH, this may be the large (20 arcmin by 15 arcmin) scattering of stars around 07 14 42, -17 01.6. Alternatively, it could be the richest part of this group, on to the southeast at 07 14 59, -17 04.2, though this is further from WH's position. Since we don't have much to go on here, I've taken the former position for the larger group as the most likely. ===== NGC 2359. See NGC 2361. ===== NGC 2361 is a knot in NGC 2359. JH's description and sketch from his Cape Observations is very appropriate for the larger object. Bigourdan's descriptions of N2361 make it clear that he was seeing only a small part of JH's object. Dreyer's IC1 note suggesting that N2361 is a reobservation of N2359, suggests that he had not seen Bigourdan's observations. ===== NGC 2363 and NGC 2366. Well, folks, it's bad news for those of us who have always identified NGC 2363 as the giant HII region in the low surface brightness irregular galaxy NGC 2366. WH's original description clearly refers to the HII region as the principal object with the bit of fuzz to the north as an incidental appendage. This view was further solidified by Ralph Copeland, observing with Lord Rosse's 72-inch reflector. Copeland identified the HII region as the center of an greatly extended object, stretching 9 or 10 arcmin to the northeast. He lists micrometric measurements of seven different objects in the surrounding area, and all are clearly refered to the HII region. Here is a list of his measurements, along with mine (made from the POSS1 blue print): Copeland Corwin Note Object P.A. Dist. P.A. Dist. * 9.5 6.3 214.9 7.5 211 * 10 337.9 191.9 335 193 * 10 340.8 235.8 339 236 * 8 351.0 396.6 351.5 400 Dif neb 265.9 71.4 274 70.5 Copeland quadrant error? Neb * 318.0 77.6 318 75.2 Star sup on F ext of galaxy "Tail" 30.9 [9-10min] 31 8min+- Main body of the galaxy So, the historical record is unmistakeable: NGC 2366 is the HII region. We can, of course, also include the rest of the galaxy under this number, since it was certainly seen. For the sake of the modern catalogues, this is also certainly the best thing to do. But what then is NGC 2363? One of Copeland's micrometric measures above -- for the "Diffused nebulosity preceding" -- is the one that Dreyer put into the NGC with the note "III 748 s[outh] f[ollowing]." This, combined with Copeland's measurement which Dreyer used, clearly points to the smaller object that we now call UGC 03847 = MCG +12-07-039 (N2366 is U3851) -- it is NGC 2363, not the HII region. I have usually taken this object to be a detached star cloud of N2366, but Steve Odewahn has shown through his detailed study of the velocity fields of the objects that it is indeed a separate galaxy interacting with N2366. So, we have two galaxies here, along with two NGC numbers clearly attached to each one. We shall just have to get used to calling the HII region "Markarian 71" (or one of its other names) since it is not N2363 as we've thought all these years. There is still one other nebulous object seen by Copeland in the area. This is the "Nebulous star or nebulous knot" which is listed in the table above. Why didn't Dreyer include it in the NGC, too? Other objects with just that sort of description were included. While this is an unanswerable question, it's possible that Dreyer had access to other notes that were not published. Or, since he and Copeland were colleagues at the time, the two of them may well have decided that the object was a star. The object is indeed a star superposed on a faint extension of NGC 2363. There may also be a distant background galaxy adding to the appearance of nebulosity -- see the lovely 200-inch photographs in the Revised Shapley Ames Catalogue (page 113) and in the Carnegie Atlas (Panel 327). ===== NGC 2366. See NGC 2363. ===== NGC 2378 is a double star precisely identified by Stephan's micrometric position, and his description, "Two stars, very faint and very close which, occasionally seem to be enveloped in a nearly imperceptible nebulosity." ===== NGC 2386 is a triple star near NGC 2388 and NGC 2389. Like many other asterisms found by Lord Rosse and his observers, it was taken to be part of a group of nebulae, probably on a night of poor seeing. ===== NGC 2388. See NGC 2386 and NGC 2390. ===== NGC 2389. See NGC 2386 and NGC 2390. ===== NGC 2390 and NGC 2391 are both stars near NGC 2388 and NGC 2389. Both are shown in Ball's diagram of 10 Dec 1866, and he has a micrometric measurement of NGC 2390. ===== NGC 2391 is a star. See NGC 2390 for a bit more. ===== NGC 2398, found by Stephan, is the brightest of three galaxies. Javelle saw one of the other two, but his note is not clear on which one. Since he gave no other details, the second object does not have an IC number. ===== NGC 2399 and NGC 2400 are a pair of triple stars found by George Bond with the Harvard refractor on 26 Feb 1853. Bond gave only one position (closer to N2399), but Schultz later measured both. D'Arrest has the two 1 minute of time further east, but Bond and Schultz are correct. ===== NGC 2400 is a triple star. See NGC 2399. ===== NGC 2403. See NGC 2253 and NGC 2404. ===== NGC 2404 is the brightest superassociation in NGC 2403. The NGC position, however, is wrong, as is the position in Bigourdan's first Comptes Rendus paper. The correct position appears twice in his lists of new nebulae in his massive "Observations ...," and the offsets he gives also reduce to the correct position. My earlier incorrect identification of this as a star is based on the NGC position. ===== NGC 2412 is a star found by J.G. Lohse. I suspect its companion 10 arcsec south, mentioned by Lohse, has contributed to an appearance of nebulosity at the eyepiece. The other star Lohse mentions in his notes is SAO 115663, a "star 8 following 59 seconds, 1.5 arcmin south." Lohse's position for N2412 is also good. ===== NGC 2428. See NGC 2430. ===== NGC 2430 may be the large sparce group of relatively faint stars centered about 5 arcmin north-east of WH's position. There is a concentration within this group centered just 6 seconds following his position, but it is rather small (8 x 4 arcmin) for a cluster described as "very large." The larger grouping is 14 x 11 arcmin across, so that is the one I've tentatively taken. Another possibility is OCL 606 1.7 minutes following, and 5 arcmin north, of WH's position. The 1.7 minutes is not an easy mistake to make, however, so I'm doubtful about this. But that cluster does match WH's description, so it remains a possibility. NGC 2428 was found in the same sweep just 9 seconds preceding and 10 arcmin south of NGC 2430. Had the two been found in different sweeps, I would have confidently declared them to be identical. NGC 2428 is clearly a cluster that matches WH's description (and his position), and I could easily imagine that it could be stumbled across independently on different nights. However, having been found so close together, apparently within a few minutes of each other, the two objects that WH recorded are almost certainly different objects. ===== NGC 2431 is probably also NGC 2436. ===== NGC 2433 is a triple star at JH's position. The 15th magnitude field star that he noticed to the northwest is at 07 39 57.13, +09 23 17.4 (B1950.0, measured on DSS as are the rest of the positions in this note). Dreyer has an NGC note that questions whether JH or d'A has the correct RA, both having just a single observation of the object. Checking at d'A's position shows a double star: 07 39 40.64, +09 23 47.6 and 07 39 41.85, +09 23 59.8. D'A also notes a 12th magnitude star to the southwest: 07 39 36.75, +09 22 32.5 (blended into a single image on DSS). He was puzzled by the discrepancy with JH, suggesting that JH's position was 19 seconds off. I've of course adopted JH's triple star as the correct object. (LEDA makes NGC 2433 a faint galaxy on to the northeast, but this is clearly wrong.) ===== NGC 2436 is probably NGC 2431. JH's RA is exactly 1.0 min larger, and his Dec exactly 1 deg smaller than those for NGC 2431. The description matches the bright core of the galaxy, so I am pretty sure that the identity of the two numbers is correct. Nevertheless, there is a triple star about 3 arcmin southwest of JH's uncorrected position (07 41 57.4, +52 09 36; B1950.0). This might be the object he saw -- but I doubt it. The errors leading to NGC 2431 are too exact to ignore. ===== NGC 2442 and NGC 2443 are the southwest and northeast parts of a large, bright galaxy observed four times by JH. The last three times, he described it as a single large nebula, and measured a position for it that agrees very well with the modern position. His first observation, however, makes it "A double nebula, vF, vL, PA of centers = 40 deg, diameters 4' and 3' running together, and having a star 13 mag at their junction." This is the interpretation that he adopted for the GC, and that Dreyer used in the NGC. The "double star" that JH noted during one observation is the nucleus and a superposed star (or a compact HII region). In the main table, I've given the position of the nucleus under both numbers, and have also given positions for the approximate centers of the two halves of the galaxy. ===== NGC 2443. See NGC 2442. ===== NGC 2456. See NGC 2457. ===== NGC 2457. The identity of this galaxy is not in doubt: Copeland gives a micrometric offset from NGC 2456 for it, and it is just where he claims to have seen it. What is interesting is his comment in the description, "About 3' north of the nova, there seemed to be another vF nebula. Telescope now at the limit of its range." There is in fact a fainter galaxy just three arcmin to the north of NGC 2457. Dreyer could well have included this in the NGC, but chose not to, apparently because of Copeland's apparent uncertainty about its existence. This makes at least three nebulae found by Copeland that are not in NGC -- interesting since Copeland was a friend and colleague of Dreyer's. ===== NGC 2458. See NGC 2469. ===== NGC 2461 is a star. See the discussion under NGC 2469. ===== NGC 2462. See NGC 2469. ===== NGC 2463. See NGC 2469. ===== NGC 2464 is a triple star. See the discussion under NGC 2469. ===== NGC 2465 is a star. See the discussion under NGC 2469. ===== NGC 2469 group. Two objects here were seen by the Herschels: NGC 2463 (JH) and NGC 2469 (WH and JH). The identity of these two is certain since John Herschel's positions are good. Lord Rosse saw, but did not measure them. He has only a note: "Great many knots, reckoned 10 nearly in a line pf." So, Herschel added eight other GC numbers for the additional objects even though no positions were available for them. Dreyer followed Herschel's lead explicitly with 10 NGC numbers for all the objects. Bigourdan measured eight of the 10 objects in 1886, so Dreyer was able to adopt Bigourdan's positions and identifications for six of the non-Herschel objects: NGC 2458, 2461, 2462, 2464, 2465, and 2471. Bigourdan returned to the field in 1895 and 1900, measuring three other objects, one of which he mistook for NGC 2458, and another which became IC 2210. A third was not included in any of Dreyer's catalogues, and did not even receive a number in any of Bigourdan's lists of "novae." He did not observe NGC 2472 or 2473 -- the final two of Lord Rosse's 10 -- so they have only approximate positions in the NGC. The Palomar Sky Survey shows only seven galaxies here, one faint and small enough, and well enough away from the others, that it may not have been seen by Lord Rosse. It was certainly not seen by Bigourdan, who in fact saw only four of the galaxies (his first observation of N2458, N2462, 63, and 69). Five other of his objects are asterisms -- single stars (N2461, 65), doubles (N2471, I2210), or a triple (N2464). The two remaining nebulae in Bigourdan's list (his second observation of N2458 and the unnumbered "nova") are unidentifiable, with only very faint stars near -- but not at -- his positions. As I mentioned above, the chances are good that Lord Rosse only saw the six brightest of the galaxies (the others were probably stars as the rich field is at a fairly low Galactic latitude; it is not unusual to find stars among Lord Rosse's novae). Since Dreyer used Bigourdan's 1886 positions, four of the NGC numbers are assigned to galaxies, and four others are taken up by asterisms. There are thus two galaxies without NGC numbers -- and fortuitously, two NGC numbers (N2472 and N2473) without galaxies. Since N2472 has been used by the CGCG for one of the unnumbered galaxies, I suggest using N2473 for the other. The only unfortunate result is that this puts N2473 -- the last of the 10 numbers -- preceding all but one of the other objects (the exception is the very faint galaxy that Lord Rosse may not have seen): it is out of NGC order. It's clear that these two identifications are uncertain, even though they are logical given the facts we have. ===== NGC 2471 is a double star. See the discussion under NGC 2469. ===== NGC 2472. The identity is uncertain. See the discussion under NGC 2469. ===== NGC 2473. The identity is uncertain. See the discussion under NGC 2469. ===== NGC 2491 and NGC 2496. Swift saw these as a pair oriented southwest- northeast, with his position for the brighter (N2496) being within 30 arcsec of a fairly bright galaxy with a faint star just preceding it. However, Swift puts the star to the east (following) where there is none. So, I'm going to suggest that his direction is wrong, but will still keep the galaxy as the one he saw. The other galaxy, though, is a problem. The object adopted by RNGC as N2491 (CGCG 031-007) is quite faint, and there are two others 10 arcmin north (CGCG 031-005 and 031-008) that would be easier to pick up: the former is considerably brighter and larger, while the latter has two stars just following that would enhance its visibility. These would have been well within Swift's 32 arcmin field, and should have been more apparent to him than the RNGC galaxy. In addition, Swift notes a "bright star near west." There is a 12th magnitude star about 2.5 arcmin to the northwest of CGCG 031-007; this might qualify as "bright" in a 16-inch refractor, but Swift usually reserved the word for stars of 10th magnitude or brighter. So, we have three galaxies to choose from: one matching Swift's position and (perhaps) his description, and two others that might be more easily seen. One option is that Swift has confused more than just his direction of the star near N2496: he confused all of the directions. This would make the orientation of the two nebulae northwest-southeast, and the bright star would be east, not west. This would make the star SAO 116199, which -- at 8th magnitude -- is indeed bright. The second is to simply accept Swift's positions as did RNGC and say that the descriptions are confused about the field stars. Adding to the confusion is Howe's observation of the field. He places N2496 near Swift's place, and notes the star preceding. But then he says, "... 2491, after careful scrutiny on a fine night, resolved itself into a few stars of mag. 14." The only object in the area matching this description is CGCG 031-008 -- but Howe makes no comment about the 10 arcmin declination error that must result. In the end, the identity of NGC 2496 is pretty sure, but that for NGC 2491 is uncertain enough in my mind to warrant some colons and question marks in the main table. Perhaps Swift was looking at a completely different pair of galaxies and simply got his positions wrong. If so, I haven't found the correct objects yet. ===== NGC 2496. See NGC 2491. ===== NGC 2509. See NGC 2319. ===== NGC 2515 is a double star. As with many of the other "nebulae" found at Harvard College Observatory during its early years in the 1850's and 1860's, there is no nebulosity associated with the stars. Poor seeing? Poor optics? Until someone examines the Observatory's early records in detail, we just won't know. In the meantime, however, the published position of NGC 2515 is very good, and the identity is certain. ===== NGC 2518 and NGC 2519 were "Two nebulae, F, L, R, gbM, delta RA = 42 seconds" found by J. G. Lohse. There is only one galaxy (UGC 04221) in the field about an arcmin from Lohse's position, but 39 seconds following it is a 14th magnitude star with 3 fainter stars in a triangle to the northwest. The asterism is about the size of the galaxy (35-40 arcsec across), and may be the object that Lohse saw. In any case, there is no other candidate object in the field. ===== NGC 2519. See NGC 2518. ===== NGC 2520 = NGC 2527. The puzzle here starts with the GC. JH has two observations of the cluster, one from Slough, the other from the Cape, both clearly of the same object. The RA for the Cape observation is out by 2.5 minutes of time, but JH nevertheless gives both earlier names (h488 and H VIII 30). Why then did he give the object two GC numbers? He has no notes in the GC, nor does Dreyer in NGC or in his collection of WH's papers. If anything, I would have expected him to adopt the Cape Observation since his earlier one has the note, "RA by working list," with the RA marked plus or minus. Whatever the case, there is certainly only one cluster, and both NGC numbers apply to it. ===== NGC 2524 and NGC 2528 are two galaxies found by Stephan in 1877. His positions are refered to BD +39 2062 = SAO 060607, so should be accurate within his measurement error of 2-3 arcsec. NGC 2524 is indeed where Stephan places it, but NGC 2528 is not south following as it should be if his position is correct. However, north preceding NGC 2524, there is a galaxy that fits Stephan's description perfectly. Looking at his measurements and plotting the galaxies and the comparison star, I found what Stephan must have done. The difference in position between the two galaxies is exactly equal to the difference in position between the star and NGC 2528. This means that Stephan actually measured NGC 2528 with respect to NGC 2524, not with respect to the star. He apparently forgot to make a note to that effect, so when he reduced his observations later, he assumed that both observations were refered to the star. Re-reducing his data taking this error into account gives positions in very close agreement with those in the GSC (aside from an offset in declination of about 15 arcsec because Stephan's declination for the comparison star is off by that amount). The PGC and RC3 have the correct identifications. ===== NGC 2528. See NGC 2524. ===== NGC 2529, 30, and 31. Herschel did indeed discover N2530, and this is the name that, as Steve Gottlieb suggests, should be used for the galaxy. The other two objects were found by Bigourdan very close to N2530. Though he examined the field four times, he saw his two new objects only once. On that one night, he estimated positions with respect to N2530: N2529 is 1' distant at position angle 220 deg, and N2531 is 1' distant at PA = 150 deg. There is nothing in either position on the PSS. He also measured a thirteenth magnitude star the same distance away from N2530 on two nights; it is just where he saw it in = 15 deg. On the second night, Bigourdan claimed to see stellar objects at the very limit of visibility where he placed N2529 and N2531 earlier, but he did not attempt to measure them. It's clear to me that the two do not exist, probably being those faint illusions that we all see now and then when we get tired or try too hard to push the limits of our optics. ===== NGC 2530. See NGC 2529. ===== NGC 2531. See NGC 2529. ===== NGC 2542 = 19 Puppis = SAO 153942 = ADS 6647. JH may have been misled by the faint companion to the brighter star. With a separation of only 2 arcsec, and a magnitude difference of 6.5, it would be very difficult to make out the fainter star except under extraordinarily fine conditions. ===== NGC 2543 = IC 2232. The galaxy was first seen by WH in Feb 1787, and was reobserved in Mar 1790. The two positions that he measured are not in particularly good agreement (08 09.6 +36 20 and 08 09.8 +36 35). JH picked it up once in Feb 1832. His position is 08 11 45, +36 24.6, also not in good agreement with either of his father's determinations. However, Sir John notes a "a coarse ** p points to it." This note is correct, and the "double star" is quite wide. The GC and NGC adopted sort of a mean of these three (08 10 43 +36 24.7) which was corrected by Dreyer in the IC 1 notes, following Spitaler (08 09 38 +36 24.7). Actually, Spitaler's micrometric position (measured in Dec 1891) reduces to 08 09 42.9 +36 24 07, using the GSC position for his comparison star, and ignoring its (unknown) proper motion. Javelle scanned the field in Feb 1896 and his position (for IC 2232) reduces to (again ignoring proper motion) 08 09 42.5 +36 24 12, agreeing well with Spitaler. Thus, there is no question that the two different numbers apply to the same object. This identity was first suggested as being the same as N2543 by Reinmuth in 1926, and every catalogue since has made the equality. The descriptions of the galaxy and the surrounding star field simply nail the lid, leaving no doubt about the equivalence of the two entries. ===== NGC 2574. See NGC 2589. ===== NGC 2582 = IC 2359. Here is a curious case. This is clearly noted as NGC 2582 in Wolf's first list, yet Dreyer still assigned it an IC number. There is no particular reason that he should have done this that I can see. The NGC position (from the two Herschels) agrees well with the GSC position, and with Wolf's position, and the descriptions are compatible. Oh, well -- these things happen. ===== NGC 2583 is a minute west of its nominal position. See NGC 2586 for more. ===== NGC 2584 is a minute west of its nominal position. See NGC 2586 for more. ===== NGC 2585 is a minute west of its nominal position. See NGC 2586 for more. ===== NGC 2586. This is a triple star. The galaxy with this label in RC3 (MCG -01-22-012) is near the nominal position, but N2586 is noted as the fourth of four nebulae. The other three (NGC 2583-5) are a minute west of Muller's position, but their relative positions are good. If N2586's relative position is similarly good, then there is little doubt that it is the triple star. ===== NGC 2589 is probably lost. There are no bright galaxies near Swift's position, though NGC 2574 (4 minutes preceding and 9 arcmin south) is a possibility. Given Swift's meager description, however -- "pF, pS, lE in meridian" -- this is little more than a guess. ===== NGC 2590 = IC 507, which see. ===== NGC 2597 is a double star. It is the preceding of two close "nebulae" that Marth found on New Year's night, 1864. The double is near Marth's place, as is his other object, NGC 2598, a galaxy. ===== NGC 2598. See NGC 2597. ===== NGC 2599. See NGC 2600. ===== NGC 2600, 2602, 2603, 2605, and 2606. There is a group of six galaxies here. Two (N2602 and N2606) of the three brightest were seen twice by JH, while he curiously missed the brightest, N2600 (LdR and Bigourdan picked this up). Of the three others seen by LdR, JH and Dreyer gave new GC and NGC numbers to only two, the other being taken as a star once, and being thought as one of the other two "novae" the second time. [There is also some confusion in LdR's 1861 PT paper, noted by JH in the GC Notes and by Dreyer in LdR's 1880 monograph, with NGC 2599 (= h507) 30 degrees south. Both JH and Dreyer come to the correct conclusion that this is a simple transcription error and that the correct numbers are h508 (= N2602) and h510 (= N2606).] JH's observations are relatively clear, though he does note a 10 second RA discrepancy between his first and second observations of N2602 (the second is more nearly correct). Also, his note "... np a star (about [PA =] 5 deg np)" should read "sp" instead of "np". As I've noted, his observations point at the second and third brightest in the group as being the two that he found. The first time LdR went over the group, he found three nebulae: 1850, Feb. 9. A fine object, 3 neb., one (N2600) B, another (N2606) f[ollowing] pB and E, the third (N2602) north and the last degree of faintness. [Dreyer appends the note about N2599.] LdR's second observation turned up four nebulae, and he provided a sketch: 1858, Mar. 11. 4 neb. found, alpha (N2603) is F, S, bM; beta (N2605) is vvF, gamma (N2602) F, S, lbM; delta is E and has a Nucl, a F * sf. alpha and gamma are about 5 arcmin dist. from one another, and beta and delta about the same dist. apart. Interestingly, he includes the faintest galaxy in the group in the sketch, but has it drawn as a star. Finally, a third observation yeilded only two nebulae: 1867, Mar. 5. 2 neb. seen nearly pf, p one (the unnumbered faintest galaxy in the group) eeF, f one (N2606) eF. Measures extremely difficult. Pos. 92 deg (2). Dist. 118 arcsec (1). In each case, the noted relative brightnesses and positions very clearly identify the objects that LdR and his observers are seeing. I find it informative that he turned up a different set of objects each night, pointing most likely to the importance of seeing, transparency, observer skill and fatigue, mirror reflectivity, and a host of other variables that determine the eventual outcome of any given observation. When Bigourdan went over the field, he found only the brightest three galaxies, N2600, N2602, and N2606, noting the others as simply "Non vue" (not seen). Making sense out of all of this is fairly straight-forward (though I swapped NGC 2602 and NGC 2605 in my first pass a few years ago; apologies to all). We simply adopt the NGC numbers for JH's two objects as given by Dreyer. JH's positions are not bad, either, though both he and Dreyer used a mean of the two discordant RAs for N2602. NGC 2600 is easy as its relatively good position comes from Bigourdan, and his comment about the two stars preceding is accurate. This leaves NGC 2603 and NGC 2605 to distribute among the three "novae" found by LdR. I've arbitrarily assigned these to the fourth and fifth brightest galaxies in the group (LdR's alpha and beta), leaving only the sixth and faintest without an NGC number. I've included this in the position table as "N2606 w comp". The final entry in the table, "N2606 e comp" is the "F * sf" that LdR notes in his 1858 observation. On the DSS, this looks like a close double, or perhaps another companion galaxy. ===== NGC 2602. See NGC 2600. ===== NGC 2603. See NGC 2600. ===== NGC 2605. See NGC 2600. ===== NGC 2606. See NGC 2600. ===== NGC 2617 is the brighter and western of two galaxies (it is MCG -01-22-026). The NGC position, from Stephan's careful micrometric measurements, is within a few arcseconds of being correct, so I'm puzzled by the occasional misidentification of this NGC number with the eastern galaxy (MCG -01-22-027). This is especially disconcerting since the eastern galaxy is considerably fainter as well. Oh, well. ===== NGC 2618. See IC 518. ===== NGC 2623. See IC 2386. ===== NGC 2629. See NGC 2630. ===== NGC 2630 and NGC 2631. These two objects were found by Tempel (apparently in 1883), and described in his note in AN 2660. Of the twelve novae mentioned in the note, these are the only two not listed in his table. It is remarkable, too, that he nevertheless describes them as "much brighter" than NGC 2629 and NGC 2641, both seen and measured by the Herschels and by d'Arrest. At the moment, my feeling is that Tempel confused NGC 2633 with NGC 2629, and that his pair is actually NGC 2634 and NGC 2634A. These two galaxies are the only ones in the group that are close enough to be actually called a "pair." However, while N2634 is bright enough to rival the earlier observers' discoveries in the area, N2634A is certainly not. It's just conceiveable, however, that on a night of exceptional transparency, the pair may have stood out enough to capture Tempel's attention. He was, in fact, so struck by their brightness -- compared to the nearby nebulae that the Herschel's and d'Arrest found -- that he suggested variablility for them. This is a pretty weak argument, however, so until Tempel's discovery sketch (which he mentions explicitly) can be examined, the question of the identities of these two NGC numbers has to remain open. So, I've simply entered the NGC positions in the table for the time being. ===== NGC 2631. See NGC 2630. ===== NGC 2633. See NGC 2630. ===== NGC 2634. See NGC 2630. ===== NGC 2637 is one of two galaxies found in the eastern part of the Beehive by Marth in 1864 (the other is NGC 2643, which see). Both are placed by Marth too far south by about 10 arcmin, and too far east by 6 and 18 seconds, respectively. The eight other objects that Marth found that same night show no such offsets from the true positions, but these two are reasonably consistent with each other, and are fairly close on the sky. I'll take the identifications since nothing else in the area matches. ===== NGC 2641. See NGC 2630. ===== NGC 2643 = IC 2390. This identity, first suggested by Reinmuth, was taken up by RNGC. The object was found by Marth in 1864. Correcting his position by 18 seconds of time and 11 arcmin leads to IC 2390. The IC object matches Marth's description, and there is no other object in the area (the east edge of the Beehive) that would fit better. NGC 2637 (which see), found by Marth the same night, also suffers from a declination error of 8 arcmin of the same sign, though the RA is only off by 6 seconds. ===== NGC 2653 is a double star. It was found and well-described by Tempel who placed it 12 arcmin north of NGC 2655. That is very close to the actual distance, and the identity is not in doubt. (Carlson notes that the Lick observers corrected the declination to 10 arcmin further north. There is a much fainter asterism in that position, but it does not have the eye-catching appearance of Tempel's double.) ===== NGC 2655. See NGC 2653. ===== NGC 2666. JH's description reads only, "The chief * of a coarse cluster." There is nothing resembling this at his position (08 46 36, +47 14.8; 1950). However, a group of about a dozen stars around SAO 42564 (08 46 24, +44 53.5) does match. Could this be the "cluster" that JH found? A more thorough search of the sky at more reasonable offsets (1 hour, 10 deg, etc.) needs to be done, though. The SAO star happens to be in the same POSS1 field, but there could be other candidates in other fields. ===== NGC 2667 = IC 2410, which see. ===== NGC 2674. Though Ormond Stone had doubts about this object, his RA is just one minute of time off, and his declination is good. Aside from his note, "neb?" his estimated magnitude (16.0) and diameter (0.4 arcmin) are appropriate for the object. ===== NGC 2684. See NGC 2688. ===== NGC 2686. See NGC 2688. ===== NGC 2687. See NGC 2688. ===== NGC 2688 and NGC 2689. I've identified these using LdR's sketch. Though he saw the two objects on only one night, the sketch is a fair depiction of the sky in the area of NGC 2684. It also shows the bright galaxy, it shows NGC 2686 to be double in the correct orientation, and it shows NGC 2687 as well; all in their correct relative positions. ===== NGC 2689. See NGC 2688. ===== NGC 2696 may be MCG -01-23-004. The description and declination are close to those recorded by Stone, though the RA is about 4 minutes of time off (Stone's RA is further east -- this is in the same direction as many other of his poor positions from the first two lists of Leander McCormick discoveries). ===== NGC 2699. See NGC 2700. ===== NGC 2700, 2702, 2703, 2705, and 2707 are almost certainly all stars, with 2703 being a double. Found by Tempel (and word of them apparently sent directly to Dreyer -- I can find no mention of them in Tempel's ten papers), there are no nebulae near NGC 2699 that he might have seen. The positions given in NGC fall only near stars. The 2 deg error in the NPD of NGC 2700 is apparently a typo. The descriptions are reasonably apt for the stars, however. NGC 2700 is within an arcminute northeast of N2699, NGC 2703 is indeed "little extended" as one might expect of a double faintly seen, N2705 has three stars following it with which it forms a trapezoid, and N2702 is about 4 arcmin northeast of NGC 2699. Only NGC 2707 has no additional description (it is only "eF, S"), but its position is close to a star that might have a faint, close companion that would enhance its appearance of nebulosity. So, while the positions are not exactly on the stars, and the identities are clearly not sure, what little evidence we have suggests that they are appropriate, if not completely correct. ===== NGC 2702 is a probably star. See NGC 2700 for more. ===== NGC 2703 is a double star. See NGC 2700 for more. ===== NGC 2704 = IC 2424. This is an identity first suggested by Bigourdan who found and measured I2424 on 18 March 1892. He could not, however, find the NGC galaxy at WH's position. Since that is just a minute of time preceding I2424, the brightest galaxy in the area, the identity is almost certain. Dreyer has a note about this in his 1912 paper and in his Notes to WH's observations; he, too, accepted the identity of the two nebulae. ===== NGC 2705 is probably a star. See NGC 2700 for more. ===== NGC 2707 is perhaps a star. See NGC 2700 for more. ===== NGC 2708 = NGC 2727. I apologize for this missing story. I'll get to it. In the meantime, see IC 2425 for a brief mention. ===== NGC 2719 may possibly be NGC 2724, which see. ===== NGC 2724 is most likely UGC 4726 with an error of almost a minute of time in RA. It's just possible, however, that the NGC number refers to NGC 2719 since JH found that during another sweep. And U4726 is as far north of JH's declination as N2719 is south (about 2 arcmin). But N2719 is another 45 seconds west of U4726, so would require a larger RA correction. Thus, my preference is to set N2724 = U4726. ===== NGC 2727 = NGC 2708. I apologize for this missing story. I'll get to it. In the meantime, see IC 2425 for a brief mention. ===== NGC 2736. On the SERC IIIa-J film, this appears to be the brightest patch in a supernova remnant that covers most of the 6.4 deg field with delicate whisps of nebulosity. On the ESO IIIa-F film, however, it is much brighter than the rest of the SNr, and I wonder if the relatively bright star immersed in it is exciting it as it passes by. In either case, it is certainly a diffuse gaseous nebula, not a galaxy. ===== NGC 2741. Marth's RA is 1 minute too far east. This misled Dreyer into noting the galaxy as the first of two (the second is NGC 2745, given its correct RA by Marth). Marth's declination is correct. ===== NGC 2745. Marth's position is good. Dreyer mistakenly added the note, "f of 2." See NGC 2741. ===== NGC 2753. The NGC position, from d'A, is one minute of time off. This is an improvement over N3575 and N3760, found the same night, which both have errors of 1 hour in the positions listed by d'A. See them for more. ===== NGC 2754. See NGC 2757. ===== NGC 2757 is probably a triple star. It and two other objects, NGC 2754 and NGC 2758, were found by Frank Muller at Leander McCormick in 1886 or 1887. This is one case where the Leander McCormick discovery positions are quite good, so the identities of N2754 and 2758 with two neighboring galaxies are not in doubt. However, the third position of Muller's trio falls in a region where only stars are found. Herbert Howe, working with the 16-inch at Chamberlain Observatory in Denver around the turn of the century, noticed a double star near Muller's place. This is a relatively bright (15th magnitude), wide (12 arcsec) double, and I'd be surprised if Muller mistook it for a nebula in the 26-inch, even on a night of rather poor seeing. The 26-inch is optically quite good, and will certainly show fainter objects with considerably more clarity than any 16-inch, all else being equal. About an arcminute south-south-following the double star, however, is a triple star of about the same total magnitude. The separation of the components is much less than the separation of the double's two stars. The triple was in fact picked up as a single non-stellar object by the Guide Star Catalogue software. My guess is that this is actually the object that Muller mistook as nebulous. The position, while a minute or so further from Muller's than the double star's position, is well within the usual Leander McCormick standard deviation. So, while we can't be certain about the identification (there is no surviving sketch), I'm going to take the triple as NGC 2757. ===== NGC 2758. See NGC 2757. ===== NGC 2760 might possibly be CGCG 350-021 -- there is certainly nothing near Swift's position that matches his description. In particular, he notes "nearly between *8 and *9." The stars flanking the CGCG object are at least two magnitudes fainter, so I don't want to push this identification too hard. ===== NGC 2783. See IC 2449. ===== NGC 2804 probably = IC 2455, which see. The NGC identification is not in doubt. ===== NGC 2806 is a star, and is certainly not the galaxy listed in RNGC. It is in just the place noted by Dreyer in Lord Rosse's observations. Here is Dreyer's description of the object: "A vF * or cS, eF neb p [N2809] (sky bad), forming an equilateral triangle with [2807] and [2809] (susp as neb by d'A, = [N2806])." Dreyer's descriptions and offsets for other objects in the field are exact, so there is no mistaking the true identity of N2806. ===== NGC 2807. See NGC 2806. ===== NGC 2809. See NGC 2806. ===== NGC 2823. See NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2825. See NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2826. See NGC 2829 and NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2827 = IC 2460, which see. Also see NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2828. See NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2829 is most likely the faint galaxy that I've included in the position table. This is tolerably close to the position shown in LdR's diagram. On the other hand, it may be a star, also close to the position in the diagram. In addition, it is sometimes identified with a faint double galaxy, but that is exactly on the line between NGC 2826 and NGC 2830 -- in the diagram, the object is well off to the east. ===== NGC 2830. See NGC 2829 and NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2831. See NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2832 is the brightest galaxy in Abell 779, and was seen by WH and JH. The younger Herschel also picked up another galaxy in the area, as did d'Arrest, but it remained for Lord Rosse's 72-inch Leviathan to reveal the cluster of a dozen or so galaxies around the brightest. These are NGC 2823, 2825-2834, and 2839. Lord Rosse made micrometric measurements of only six of these (with respect to the brightest), but JH received notes from the Earl that allowed him (JH) to give good positions in the GC for six others. He had to give the remaining two of the 15 claimed nebulae estimated positions. In spite of JH's care, the GC is rather confused in the area. When Dreyer came around to the group during his preparation of LdR's observations, he sorted the area out pretty well, and the NGC reflects his careful work. In the process, he dropped two of the GC numbers, and combined two others so that the total number of nebulae here seen by LdR is just 12 -- the sketch shows those twelve in their correct relative positions. Only for NGC 2829 (which see) is there any uncertainty left about the identifications. ===== NGC 2833. See NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2834. See NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2839. See NGC 2832. ===== NGC 2843. In spite of the faintness of this galaxy, and its proximity to the considerably brighter star, it is almost surely the object that WH found. He is cautious in his description, noting that it took 240X to show the object and the star. His position is just an arcminute east, too, well within his usual observational error. ===== NGC 2846 is a double star. This was found by Lord Rosse (or by his observer at the time, Ralph Copeland) who thought it a star with a very small nebula nearby. Even though no accurate position is given, micrometric offsets to nearby stars positively identify the star they thought nebulous. A few years later, Lord Rosse (or Dreyer, who was then the resident observer at Parsonstown) reobserved the object, but could see no nebulosity. Instead, he suggested a very small cluster. A correction to the position, by Bigourdan, appeared in the Notes to the first IC. However, there is some error in Bigourdan's observation, since his offsets point to a blank region of sky. Just north of his position is a 15th magnitude star; another is just west. He probably saw one or the other of these. In any case, he missed Lord Rosse's double star, so we have to discount his correction. My first thought was to accept the first observation of the single star as N2846, but Glen Deen pointed out that the two star images are actually in contact on the Sky Survey. While they would not have been merged on a fairly good night at the 72-inch, they are still clearly close enough together to have misled some veteran observers into believing that one star was nebulous, or that there was a cluster present. Since the NGC itself accepts the second observation, it seems best to follow that. ===== NGC 2871 is a star just north-preceding NGC 2872. Lord Rosse has two detailed observations of the N2872/4 group, one of which includes micrometrically measured offsets which point exactly at the star. ===== NGC 2872. See NGC 2871. ===== NGC 2874. See NGC 2875. ===== NGC 2875. This is the north-following part of NGC 2874. Lord Rosse's micrometrically measured offsets point exactly at the rather knotty spiral arm, and his description is consistent with the appearance on the Sky Survey. ===== NGC 2885 = IC 538. John Herschel saw this on only one night. The RA is marked with a plus-minus sign, and his description reads, "eF, vS, E in parallel; RA very uncertain." His description is correct, and his RA is indeed about 25 seconds too large (there is nothing in his estimated place, not even a star). The comment "... E in parallel ..." (that is, the position angle is 90 deg) fits no other galaxy in the area. This is also the brightest galaxy around, so the identification is secure. Bigourdan made four observations of the galaxy, and his position is accurate. On the other hand, he also claims to have glimpsed "NGC 2885" (on one night only; on another night, he has this as "Non vue" [not seen]) about 1.4 arcmin north of JH's place. But again, there is nothing there, not even a star. ===== NGC 2886 is probably the asterism of 4 stars about an arcminute following JH's position. There is nothing else in the area that fits his sparce description. ===== NGC 2901 may be one of the galaxies (UGC 05070, 05074, or 05087) just over a degree south of Stone's especially crude position, estimated during a search for Winnecke's comet. There is nothing closer to his position that he might have mistaken as nebulous, unless it is one of the faint double stars in the area. Wolfgang has taken one of these. ===== NGC 2902 is not IC 543 (which see for details) as suggested in MCG. ===== NGC 2903. See NGC 2905. ===== NGC 2905 is the northeast arm of NGC 2903. JH has several observations of it in that position, as well as a sketch. The only slight mystery here is why WH made it one of his first class nebulae, ranking it in brightness with the central portion of NGC 2903 itself. ===== NGC 2909 is a double star about 30 arcsec following JH's position. Several observers have suggested other identifications for it, but nothing else in the area is as convincing. See also NGC 4512 for more on the sweep in which JH found this object. ===== NGC 2911. See NGC 2912. ===== NGC 2912 is a star described only in Schultz's note for his observation of NGC 2911. The faint galaxy close following N2911 (taken as N2912 by all and sundry) is much too faint for Schultz to have picked up with his 9.6-inch refractor, especially given the considerably brighter star just a few arcsec following (the 1950 position for the star is 09 31 12.07, +10 22 57.2). Brian Skiff has suggested that N2912 is identical to N2914. But Schultz has observations of both galaxies on the same three nights, calling N2914 nearly as bright as N2911. Furthermore, Schultz's description of N2912 "eF, f h608 [N2911] some seconds, ab[out] 2' n, but not observable" places his "nova" northeast of N2911, not southeast. The only object in the area, bright enough that he could see, that matches his estimated offsets, is the star that I list in the table. This may not be a completely solid identification, but it is pretty close. ===== NGC 2914. See NGC 2912. ===== NGC 2932 is a patch of the Milky Way about 1 degree across, centered near JH's approximate position (he gives it only to a full minute of time and a full minute of arc). In his description, he notes that it is "... a degree or degree and half in diameter, very rich in stars of all magnitudes from 8 m downwards ..." This is just what we see on the IIIa-J plate today. ===== NGC 2938 was the first of fifteen nebulae found by WH in sweep 1096 of 2 April 1801. There was considerable confusion in the 19th century about the identities of these galaxies, confusion still not sorted out at the time the NGC and the ICs were published. It was, however, mostly laid to rest in an unsigned note in MNRAS 71, 509, 1911 "Communicated by the Astronomer Royal". This gives accurate positions for forty nebulae in the area covered by WH's sweep, and enabled Dreyer to finally publish (in the Scientific Papers) corrected NGC identifications for WH's galaxies. Dreyer, however, did not give cross-identifications to all of the NGC numbers, particularly those which came in from other observers (JH and d'A). I list those in my note to NGC 3752 (which see), where I give a fairly detailed account of the problem and its solution. ===== NGC 2944. It has seemed strange to me that just three arcmin north-following this triple galaxy is a considerably brighter pair. Did Palisa perhaps see one of the pair rather than the galaxy we now call N2944? Tracking down Palisa's original observation to AN 2782, I found that his micrometrically measured position (based on six settings) falls within three arcsec of the GSC position of brightest of the triple. The identity is thus certain -- but why did Palisa not see the brighter galaxies just to the north? ===== NGC 2947 = IC 547 = IC 2494 is the only object that I am currently (May 2003) aware of which has an entry in all three of Dreyer's catalogues. See IC 547 for details. ===== NGC 2972 = NGC 2999, which see. ===== NGC 2973 is perhaps the triple star just following JH's position. If it is indeed the correct object, JH's note "a B * 8 m follows" is somewhat misleading since the star is clearly south-following. That raises the possibility that the double star also listed in the table is JH's object. However, JH describes his object as "eF, 40 arcsec." The triple is closer to that size than the double. So, both asterisms are candidates. For the present, I favor the triple -- but not by much. ===== NGC 2977 was one of the galaxies found by WH on the night of 2 April 1801 for which large, systematic errors exist in the position. See NGC 3752 for more information. ===== NGC 2984 = IC 556, which see. ===== NGC 2995 appears to be a clump of stars roughly 20-25 arcmin across centered about 10 arcmin north of JH's position. His description reads "Cluster VIII class, at least 20 sts 11 m and upwards, and many smaller." This is what we see on the IIIa-J plate, though I doubt that it is a real cluster. ===== NGC 2998. See NGC 3000, 3002, and 3004. ===== NGC 2999 = NGC 2972. JH's place for N2999 is only approximate. He says, "Observed for Dunlop 397, and place only rough. Possibly the same object with Sw 680, No. 27, which see above (No. 3183 [= N2972])." This is an entirely reasonable hypothesis, and JH's descriptions are the same, so I've adopted the identity. ===== NGC 3000 is a double star, accurately located by LdR's micrometric observation referred to NGC 2998. ===== NGC 3002 is a star. It and NGC 3004 were seen only once by LdR, and are both included in his chart of the NGC 2998 field. Of the three faint stars near the place shown for NGC 3002, the brightest (included in the main table) and closest to LdR's position as sketched, is most likely the one he saw. The second brightest star is at 09 45 52.0, +11 17 34. MCG +07-20-052 is a low surface brightness interacting system less than 2 arcmin southeast of the star. MCG unfortunately took this to be NGC 3002, so the object has been incorrectly saddled with the NGC number ever since. ===== NGC 3004 is, like NGC 3002, a star. LdR saw it only once, and included it on his chart, though did not letter it: it should be "alpha," between NGC 2998 and NGC 3005. ===== NGC 3005. See NGC 3004. ===== NGC 3034 = M 82. The position for this large, bright irregular galaxy depends strongly on wavelength. The brightest optical knot is not coincident with the radio "nucleus" nor with the brightest infrared knot. And there are several bright X-ray sources scattered throughout the galaxy. All the positions I've listed, though, fall within the boundaries of the galaxy, and there is of course no identification problem (but note that this is one of the few Messier objects which also received a number -- IV 79 -- in WH's catalogue). ===== NGC 3046 may be NGC 3051. But if it is, JH has made some strange mistake since he specifically says in a note in the GC "h3199 [N3046] and 3201 [N3051] are also distinct nebulae, and were observed consecutively in sweep 562 (h)." His CGH observation has the note "RA precarious; a hurried observation." I'm inclined to believe that the two observations refer to the same object, in spite of JH's protestations to the contrary. The descriptions are identical (as far as they go; N3046 is noted only as "pF,R" while N3051 is "pF,S,R,gbM; 20 arcsec"), and the positions are not all that much different. There are two very faint double stars near JH's position for N3046, but they are much fainter than N3051 and any other double star that I know that JH has mistaken as a nebula. This sort of mistake -- measuring the same galaxy twice in the same sweep, thinking it a different object -- has occured at least twice in his father's sweeps, and I would not doubt that it appears in JH's, too. Still, I'm listing the main entry as "Not found", and putting a question mark on the identity with N3051. Whatever the case, there is certainly only one bright galaxy here, not two as JH has it. ===== NGC 3051 may also be NGC 3046, which see. ===== NGC 3058s = IC 573 was found by Leavenworth at Leander-McCormick. As usual, the position is poor, though it was corrected by Howe. Leavenworth did note the object as double or bi-nuclear; it is, of course, double with the southern galaxy being the brighter. See IC 573 for more. ===== NGC 3061 was found by WH on the night of 2 April 1801. The positions of all fifteen nebulae in the sweep (No. 1096) are affected by large, systematic errors. See NGC 3752 where I give the story of how it all came to be sorted out, first by Dreyer; then by myself, Steve Gottlieb, and Wolfgang Steinicke. ===== NGC 3063 is the double star southwest of NGC 3065 and NGC 3066. Though N3063 was first seen by WH in 1802, he apparently described it only indirectly: "F, pL, R; the last of three, the others are II 333 and II 334." The position he gives is that of NGC 3066, and the description fits, too, so that is probably the object he mistakenly thought was new. If so, he also mistook the double star as one of his previous objects. His confusion was carried over through the GC and d'A's catalogue into NGC, and eventually into Dreyer's 1912 reprinting of WH's papers. I actually prefer the numbering that he has in the NGC itself as it more accurately reflects the history: NGC 3065 and 3066 are the true nebulae and are II 333 and II 334, respectively, while the last object found is II 909 = NGC 3063. This last object was not seen by JH, but was measured twice by d'A (his position appears in the NGC). d'A also has five or six measures of the other two objects, so he pinned down all three. ===== NGC 3065. See NGC 3063. ===== NGC 3066. See NGC 3063. ===== NGC 3069 = IC 580, which see. ===== NGC 3070. See IC 580. ===== NGC 3080 is close to IC 585. Both were seen by Bigourdan who got the NGC number on the correct object. I had some question about that as his position is somewhat different from the NGC position. The NGC position apparently comes from CH; it is based on a single observation by WH who compared it to "the Georgian Planet" on 1 April 1794. After some fussing about looking for an on-line ephemeris, Brian Skiff pointed me at JPL's "Horizons". Jon Giorgini, one of Horizons maintainers, set me straight on its use, so I was able to find that Uranus was at 09 57 30.0, +13 17 24 (B1950.0) on the night that WH used it as a comparison object. This position, combined with WH's offsets (16 seconds preceding, 2 arcmin south) fell within 1.5 arcmin of NGC 3080, the brighter of the two galaxies. Fortunately, not only did Bigourdan get it right, but he published a correction to the NGC position that ended up in the IC2 Notes. Even that position, however, is a bit off because he used the old BD position for his comparison star. Once that is corrected, and proper motion taken into account, his position lands within a few arcseconds of the modern ones. ===== NGC 3097. I cannot find this one. Here are the original observations from the Harvard Annals, Vol. 8, Part 1, page 62, 1882: "Date GC RA (1860.0) Dec Remarks 1870 Mar.24 -- 09 54 19.6 +60 47 58.2 G.C. 1998 s f neb; p 45 deg s 2'. [Place only approximate.] 1870 Mar.24 1998 09 54 36.7 +60 46 33.3 G.C. 1998: F; S; R; mbMN." There are three things to note about these observations: 1) The position of the second (GC 1998 = NGC 3102) is from the GC. 2) The "p 45 deg s 2' " means that the first (N3097) is 2' away from GC1998 at a position angle of 45 degrees. This is inconsistent with the position which implies the object to be northwest, not northeast, of N3102. 3) Both observations are credited to E. P. Austin, and there is a note for N3097: "Perhaps a nebulous star. It is half-way between G.C. 1998 and a star 11 magn." The positions don't tell us anything we don't already know since they are correctly transfered into NGC from GC and the Harvard list. Since Austin was observing with a 15-inch telescope, I don't think that he could have seen either of the faint stars Glen Deen measured during his MicroSky project. The magnitude estimate given by Austin for the "star 11 magn" is rough since there is nothing that bright near the galaxy. WH had this to say (N3102 = H III 916): "eF, vS, Stellar. Near a S st." And JH: "F, vS, R, bM; a coarse D * nf points to it; has a * 11 30'' dist, pos 142.2 deg ." All of JH's stars are identifiable, and I think that his star 11 must be the same one mentioned by WH and by Austin. So, where does that leave N3097? My guess is that Austin has misidentified another nebula as N3102, but I don't see it or its purported companion in the area. A more thorough search may turn them up. ===== NGC 3102. See NGC 3097. ===== NGC 3107. Given WH's estimated position -- "3/4 deg following, 1/2 deg north [of the] Georgian planet," it's a wonder that this object was ever recovered. However, WH also noted that the object is "3 arcmin north of a pL red star." This pair of objects is unmistakeable enough that LdR had no trouble finding it in spite of the poor position, and the confusion in the GC description ("L red star north 3 arcmin"). It must be said, however, that the GC position, presumeably from CH's reduction of WH's observations, is remarkably good, being only 6 arcmin south and 5 seconds east of the galaxy. Dreyer picked the wrong star, however, as the "red" star near the nebula. This led him to assign the wrong position to the nebula in his note in the GC Supplement, in LdR's observations, and in the NGC. The correct star is SAO 98932 (spectral type K2), not SAO 98925 (spectral type F5). Using the SAO position for the correct star, and LdR's micrometric offsets, leads to a position for the galaxy that is within an arcsecond of the GSC position. ===== NGC 3110 = NGC 3122 = NGC 3518 (= MCG -01-26-014) and MCG -01-26-013 are an interacting pair separated by 1.9'. N3110 is the brighter of the pair. N3122 is actually an observation of N3110, but WH confused his comparison stars. Stephan's position is very close to the actual position of the galaxy, but is about an arcmin off in declination. This is probably due to the incorrect declination that he quotes for his comparison star (which is not the same one that Herschel used). Both Stephan (in his 1885 AN paper) and Dreyer (in MNRAS 73, 37, 1912) suggest that the two NGC numbers refer to the same galaxy. Dreyer makes further comments in his notes to WH's first catalogue of nebulae, (included in WH's complete papers, edited by Dreyer in 1912) saying "Looked for but not found in 1787. It was the only object compared with `20 Sextantis,' but the star was in reality B.1414. This gives for 1860 9h57m04s, 95d49m, in perfect agreement with N3110 (Stephan XIII)." Stephan's position is actually 2 arcmin north of this one, but the agreement is close enough to make the identification clear. The two stars by the way, are SAO 137424 (20 Sex) and SAO 137400 (B.1414, perhaps from Bessel's catalogue). Coincidentally, there is a galaxy 2 arcmin south of WH's position. It is the one that Jack Sulentic picked up for RNGC, but it is not in MCG. The RNGC galaxy is at 10 03 47.1, -06 19 49 (GSC, B1950) and is much fainter. If WH looked for it again in 1787 at roughly this location, then I'm not surprised that he did not recover it. The identity with NGC 3518 (which see), is yet another story. ===== NGC 3119 is probably the same galaxy as NGC 3121. There is no doubt about the identification of N3121. This was found by William Lassell in 1848 (see AN 635, and send me a copy; I've not seen it yet myself!) with one of his smaller telescopes. It was reobserved by Arthur Auwers, who noted the 9th magnitude star 4 arcmin north and 14-15 seconds of time preceding. The position listed by Auwers (1862) is very good. N3119 was found by Albert Marth in 1863 with Lassell's 48-inch reflector. He describes it only as "vF." His position, from one observation, falls about an arcmin southwest of NGC 3121; it is also 2.4 arcmin north of the galaxy that RNGC chose as N3119 (CGCG 093-045, which is considerably fainter than N3121). Marth probably could have seen CGCG 093-045. However, since his position is closer to N3121, and since that galaxy is the brightest in the area, it is more likely that Marth's observation refers to it. I have adopted this identification for those reasons. RNGC could be right -- but then, why didn't Marth mention reobserving the galaxy that his mentor had found 15 years before? Would he even know about it? Unanswerable questions. ===== NGC 3121. See NGC 3119. ===== NGC 3122 = NGC 3110 = NGC 3518 (both of which see). ===== NGC 3129 is a double star seen by both WH and JH. WH's position, adopted by JH, is good, and both descriptions are appropriate. It appears, however, that LdR must have seen it as a star or a double star, as he could not find any nebulosity at WH's position on three different nights. Dreyer has a note in NGC to that effect. ===== NGC 3140 and NGC 3141. The field exactly matches the sketch that Leavenworth made, and his descriptions also match, down to the bright nucleus in the brighter galaxy. His original descriptions make it clear that the galaxy that got the smaller NGC number is actually the brighter, northeast member of the pair. Here are his data from AJ 7, 9, 1886: No. RA (1890) Dec Mag Size Form Condensation [NGC] 166 10 04 16 06 15.5 0.5' R sbMN [3140] 167 10 04 16 06 16.0 0.3 R --- [3141] Dreyer has added the notes "1st of 2" and "2nd of 2." I suspect that he thought that the larger and brighter galaxy was the preceding since it was listed first in the table. That turns out to be wrong, unfortunately, so the NGC numbers are reversed from the right ascensions. ===== NGC 3141. See NGC 3140. ===== NGC 3144 = NGC 3174. D'A found NGC 3144 in the late 1850s and measured its place pretty accurately. NGC 3174 is from WH's 2 April 1801 sweep 1096 which was affected by a large, systematic error of some sort. See NGC 3752 for more on this sweep, and how we sorted it out. ===== NGC 3148 is probably only a star. JH's description reads "A star 7m has a photosphere 2 or 3 arcmin diam. Sky perfectly clear; glass quite clean; windy. Another * of same mag viewed presently after has no photosphere." There is certainly no bright nebulosity that large around the star, and it is not a double or multiple star, either. JH has a couple of other stars which he suspected of nebulosity, too, which show none today. These must be illusions of some sort, though very difficult to account for. ===== NGC 3155 = NGC 3194. NGC 3155 was found by JH and later remeasured by d'A. Their position, used in the NGC, is quite accurate. NGC 3194 is from WH's sweep 1096 of 2 April 1801; all the nebulae in that sweep have large, systematic position problems. See NGC 3752 for more. ===== NGC 3157 = IC 2555, which see. ===== NGC 3162 = NGC 3575, which see. ===== NGC 3167. I can't find this object; there is nothing at all in d'A's position. The only reasonable asterism nearby (a triple, composed of a close double with a fainter single just north, about 4 arcmin northeast) does not have the "* 11 preceding 9.5 seconds, slightly north" that d'A notes in his description. If this is a bad position, it is one of the few in d'A's list (there are some, of course; see NGC 3575 and NGC 3966 for examples). ===== NGC 3170 is a double star. JH's position is just an arcminute south- southwest, and the double is very much like the several others that he mistook as nebulae. Interestingly, the double is also Reiz 248. I do not have Reiz's catalogue available, but would suspect that he picked up the object from the NGC. ===== NGC 3174 = NGC 3144, which see. ===== NGC 3180 is a star cloud or HII region in NGC 3184's northwestern arm. The position in NGC (by Dreyer from LdR's observations) fits the star cloud better, but the HII region is brighter, though smaller. The number may well apply to both objects or simply the general area of the arm where they are found. There is no problem with the identification of NGC 3181 -- it is the brightest HII region in NGC 3184, located southwest of the nucleus. ===== NGC 3181 is an HII region in NGC 3184. See NGC 3180. ===== NGC 3183 = NGC 3218. NGC 3183, found by d'A, has an accurate position given in the NGC. NGC 3218, found by WH on 2 April 1801, does not; all the galaxies found that night have large, systematic position errors. See NGC 3752 for more. ===== NGC 3184. See NGC 3180. ===== NGC 3186 is perhaps the northeastern component of CGCG 036-074. There is nothing at Marth's position, and the CGCG galaxy is 1 minute 30 seconds preceding and 6 arcmin south. There are, however, "sev F sts near" as noted in the NGC. This is not true of the nearer, though fainter, candidate galaxy, CGCG 036-085 (20 seconds following, 5 arcmin south). But -- the NGC note about the nearby faint stars is not in Marth's original description. Dreyer had added it by the time he published the GC Supplement in 1878, but I have not been able to trace the source of the note. It is not in LdR's observations, and Dreyer has no reference in the Supplement. Given that uncertainty, I'm reluctant to discount either galaxy. Nor is there a systematic offset in Marth's positions for the other 25 objects he credits to the same date, 1865.23. NGC 3186 seems to be the only object from that date with a large offset from Marth's position. All in all, not a very satisfactory identity. ===== NGC 3191 = NGC 3192, which see. ===== NGC 3192 = NGC 3191. WH's NPD is -9 arcmin in error, close enough to 10 to make this pretty clearly a digit mistake in reduction or copying. WH's description, "eF, vS. Perhaps a patch of small stars" is also appropriate for NGC 3191 which has several OX knots in it. The identity was first suggested by JH, and was later taken up by Dreyer. ===== NGC 3194 = NGC 3155, which see. ===== NGC 3197 was found by WH on 2 April 1801. All fifteen objects he found this night are more or less affected by large position errors. See NGC 3752 for more on the sweep (No. 1096). ===== NGC 3210 is a close double star about an arcminute west-northwest of NGC 3212. WH's description is appropriate, and his position (for three objects; the third is NGC 3215) is good. There is another star of similar magnitude about 23 arcsec preceding the double; is it possible that WH glimpsed this, too? If so, it would probably have added to the illusion of nebulosity. ===== NGC 3212. See NGC 3210. ===== NGC 3215. See NGC 3210. ===== NGC 3218 = NGC 3183, which see. ===== NGC 3220 = IC 604, which see. ===== NGC 3223 = IC 2571, which see. ===== NGC 3229 is a triple star. It is very close to Coolidge's position, and is similar to several other asterisms discovered at Harvard in the early 1850's. The hours of RA (20) in the NGC is a typo there, not in the original paper in AN. ===== NGC 3231. See NGC 4512. ===== NGC 3234 is almost certainly = NGC 3235. JH's position is exactly 1 degree north, and his description fits. Dreyer was the first to suggest the identity and his NGC note documents his idea. Unfortunately, his note in IC1 confuses the issue: "3234 is not = 3235; both seen by Denning." While I've not seen Denning's observation (it is not in his short paper about the circumpolar nebulae where he announces the discovery of several IC objects), I suspect that he must have picked up the two objects that d'A found: N3232 and N3234. There is certainly nothing nebulous at the nominal position for N3234, and the exact 1 degree error in JH's position argues convincingly for Dreyer's first interpretation. ===== NGC 3235 = NGC 3234, which see. ===== NGC 3247. JH's position is approximate. Though he has three observations of this, only one -- and possibly not even that -- was made on the meridian. The only thing matching his descriptions "Stars involved in evident nebula," "A decidedly nebulous group," and "There is a nebulous appearance, which merits re-examination," is the HII region I've listed in the table with its attached cluster. Brian Skiff identifies this cluster as "Westerlund 1", but Brent Archinal in "Star Clusters" corrects this to "Westerlund 2". Brent also notes that Collinder 220 is often mistakenly called "N3247", as it is in ESO -- and indeed was here until I stumbled across the little cluster in the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog. The nebula shows nicely in the DSS2 red image where it is about 6 x 4 arcmin across. The correct identification was first made by Stewart on a Harvard plate (and included by Dreyer as an IC2 Note), but his position is about 3 arcmin southwest of the center of the object. ===== NGC 3251 = IC 2579. D'Arrest's RA is just 1 minute of time off, an error first suggested by Dreyer in a note to IC2, as well as in the description for IC 2579. The galaxy is positively identified by d'A's note about the three stars to the southwest. There is no problem with Javelle's observation for the IC entry -- it is accurate. ===== NGC 3252 has a two minute error in its RA and a 4 arcmin error in its Dec. But it is far enough north that the RA error amounts to just over 8 arcmin, so there is no mistaking the bright galaxy that WH found. ===== NGC 3261. See NGC 3366. ===== NGC 3267. See NGC 3271. ===== NGC 3268. See NGC 3271. ===== NGC 3269. See NGC 3271. ===== NGC 3271 = IC 2585 has an error of 20 seconds in its NGC RA. The NGC identity is not in doubt as it is one of the four bright galaxies in the area, and JH has four nebulae in a group listed in his CGH Observations. However, his observations are a bit confused since he mentions a fifth nebula "... more remote and brighter ..." in his description for NGC 3268. Since there are only the four entries (corresponding to N3267, N3268, N3269, as well as N3271) in his CGH list, and since he mentions only four nebulae appearing in the diagram (not published) made during Sweep 571, we now have no way of knowing where he saw his fifth nebula. Aside from the 20 second RA error, the positions he adopted from the diagram for the CGH list and the GC (copied into the NGC, of course) are good enough to unambiguously identify his four listed objects, so it is unlikely that any of them are the fifth object. It's also clear that Stewart picked up the galaxy (on a Bruce plate taken at Arequipa) because of the RA error. Thus, it also carries the IC number. However, Stewart makes no mention of any of the NGC objects in the group. This is particularly puzzling since he obviously thought that N3271 was missing. Still, his position for it is good, and the identity with IC 2585 is secure. ===== NGC 3272 is a double star. Schultz's position is within an arcsecond of the modern position, and his complete description (F, vS, iR, stellar, r, m=12-13) fits perfectly. He also has a note that reads, "Nova VI an insignificant object; p h721 [= NGC 3277] about 68 seconds and 160 arcsec south; ..." Those distances also exactly point to the double. ===== NGC 3277. See NGC 3272. ===== NGC 3283 is ESO 263-G48. JH puts a plus-minus sign on the RA and notes "RA coarsely taken by an auxillary star." In addition to the uncertain RA is the GC (and NGC) NPD -- it is 10 arcmin too small. This must be an error in transcribing/precessing the CGH position into the GC. Once these are taken into account, ESO 263-G48 is the obvious candidate. ===== NGC 3284 = NGC 3286 is the brighter of two galaxies found by WH in April of 1793 (the fainter is NGC 3288). The number N3284 applies to H III 912 seen on the 8th of April, while N3286 belongs to III 917, found the next night along with N3288 = III 918. The GC/NGC position of N3284 is 10 seconds too small (presumeably a reduction or transcription error) compared to my re-reduction of WH's position, so Dreyer did not comment on the possible identity until he prepared WH's papers for their 1912 publication. There he also notes that Bigourdan did not find N3284. A few other objects found the same night by WH show no systematic offset in their re-reduced positions, so the declination offset implied by the identity with N3286 is unique to III 912. The explanation adopted by RNGC (N3284 is a star) is considerably less likely. ===== NGC 3286 = NGC 3284, which see. ===== NGC 3288. See NGC 3284. ===== NGC 3291 is a star exactly at Bigourdan's position. Though he could not find it on a second night, his two measurements on the first are accurate. In addition, his comment "NGC 3294 is toward PA = 35 deg, d = 4.5 arcmin" is also correct. The identity is thus certain. ===== NGC 3294. See NGC 3291. ===== NGC 3301 = NGC 3760, which see. ===== NGC 3308. See NGC 5298. ===== NGC 3309. See NGC 5298. ===== NGC 3311. See NGC 5298. ===== NGC 3314. See NGC 3315. ===== NGC 3315. My original thought that this might just be a duplicate observation of NGC 3314 is unlikely since the discoverer E.P. Austin has an observation of N3314 on the same night. Also, Austin's description refers to a "star np neb 1 arcmin." While there is a star 1 arcmin northwest of NGC 3314, it is actually fainter than another star much nearer the pair, also on the north side. So, I now support the idea that there is a 30 arcmin error in Austin's declination (which was not micrometrically measured as some of his were), and that NGC 3315 is actually ESO 501-G48. RC3, therefore, is most likely correct. ===== NGC 3324. See IC 2599, the southern part of the NGC object. ===== NGC 3328 is probably a pair of stars near Peters's position. Spitaler's position given in a note in IC1, is for another pair of stars about 5 arcmin southwest. Both observers saw and measured NGC 3332 (which see) when they worked on N3328, and both have good positions for that. Since Peters saw both objects on two different nights, I've taken the stars nearer his position as the most likely object. Spitaler's is also possible, but that would demand an error in Peters's relative positions, possible on one night, but unlikely on two. Dreyer also credits N3328 to Tempel, but Tempel gives no position in his fifth paper, so it is not now possible to tell exactly what he was looking at. He records two observations, however, so -- like Peters -- the objects must have appeared nebulous under even pretty good conditions. ===== NGC 3329 = NGC 3397. NGC 3329 was found by JH; his position is only an arcmin off the galaxy. NGC 3397, on the other hand, was found by his father in sweep 1096 on 2 April 1801 -- all fifteen of the galaxies that WH found in that sweep have very large, systematic errors in their positions. See NGC 3752 for more. ===== NGC 3332 = NGC 3342 (which see) is probably the galaxy measured by Schoenfeld and Vogel, and mentioned in the notes to the GC Supplement by Dreyer. WH's first observation for H I 272 was refered to Uranus (his "Georgian Planet") and reduces to a place several arcmin away from the galaxy. But it is the only one in the area bright enough that he could have seen it, and the description fits as well. The galaxy is also number 24 in David Todd's list published as part of his search for a "trans-Neptunian" planet. His sketch matches the sky very well, but his position, like WH's, is not very good. This must be one of the Todd objects for which Dreyer suspected an identity with a known nebula, as he does not mention Todd's observation of this object. ===== NGC 3335. See IC 625. ===== NGC 3339 is a faint star preceding NGC 3340. Marth's positions for both objects (found the same night) are good, and his descriptions apt. ===== NGC 3340. See NGC 3339. ===== NGC 3342 = NGC 3332 (which see). WH did not do well with his positions for this galaxy. His first observation of it (on 18 Jan 1784 as III 5), fully related by Dreyer in the 1912 Papers, reads "The faintest and smallest nebula imaginable. I viewed it a long while and with a higher power than the sweeper. Having no person at the clock, I went in to write down the time and found it impossible to recover the nebula. It appeared like a vS nebulous star, and is probably of the cometic sort; there was another vS star south- following (I think, or rather, am pretty sure), and it preceded a pB * [the nebula is south-preceding of a star by a diagram, about 6 arcmin][JLED]. It should have been secured before I went into the light. Its place must be about 2 1/2 deg following rho Leonis and about 10 arcmin more north than that star." WH's vivid description of the field is clear enough to unmistakeably identify N3342 with N3332, even though his position is over 2 minutes of time, and 15 arcmin off. Dreyer notes that neither Spitaler nor Bigourdan could find the object -- understandably, given the data they had. He has two other observations, somewhat better, of it as H I 272 (= N3332), but even those led to questions about its position. ===== NGC 3345 is a double star found by JH. He was looking for his father's H I 26, but did not find it at WH's position. That position turns out to be just one minute of time preceding, and 20 arcmin north of M 95 (N3351), the description fits the bright galaxy, and WH did not mention M 95 in the sweep; so -- as Dreyer suggested -- H I 26 is probably an observation of Messier's object. JH's position for the double is good, though he seems to have doubted his observation, calling the object "eF, hardly visible." Though Dreyer adopted JH's description as well as position for the NGC, he noted the identity with H I 26 as very questionable, and also noted that neither he nor d'A could find anything at JH's place. The GC entry is an amalgam of WH's description ("cB, pL, E, mbM") and JH's position. Dreyer recognized the discrepancy between the descriptions, so cleaned up the entry for the NGC. ===== NGC 3351 = M 95 = H I 26. See NGC 3345. ===== NGC 3355 could be any of a number of galaxies scattered over a 3x3 degree area near the nominal position. Found by S. P. Langley with Harvard's 15-inch refractor in April of 1866, he noted the position as "approximate." He was looking for Biela's comet at the time, so apparently recorded only a crude position for his nebula. ESO and SGC took the large late-type galaxy ESO 501-G079 as the most likely candidate, but this has a very low surface brightness and would be difficult to see in a long-focus telescope. A more likely candidate is ESO 501-G080, a "normal" early-type object with a surface brightness two magnitudes brighter than G079. Langley's position, however, does not fall very close to either object, so without further information, these identifications can be no more than suggestions. ===== NGC 3366 = IC 2592. JH has a note: "The minute of RA is doubtful. The written record makes it 47; but as this is impossible from the context, 37 is assumed." Dreyer only noted in NGC that the RA was "very doubtful" and that the bright star that JH saw nearby was not in two catalogues. The actual RA is 27; that is allowed by the context of the sweep. The next non-stellar object in the sweep is NGC 3446 at RA 10 44 44.6 (B1830), and the preceding object is NGC 3261 at 10 21 46.6 (again B1830). JH assumed a 10 minute error, but the actual 20 minute error still fits into the sweep. The galaxy was rediscovered by Delisle Stewart on an Arequipa plate taken about 70 years after JH's sweep. Stewart made no errors in this entry, but he also did not note that NGC 3366 was missing. Perhaps the nominal position is off the edge of his plate. Since he used a one-hour plate (number 3636), he did not give the central position. ===== NGC 3371 is probably NGC 3384, and NGC 3373 is probably NGC 3389. JH's descriptions are appropriate for the galaxies, and his measured position angles -- 68.4 deg between his first and second objects, and 156.8 deg between his second and third -- are a close match for those between N3379 and N3384 (66.5 deg), and N3384 and N3389 (154.7 deg), especially when precession is taken into account. However, JH has left us positions that suggest that these are companions of NGC 3367, not NGC 3379. His position for N3367, the nominal first of the three, exactly matches the position for that object measured on another night when the additional two objects were not seen. Added to this is his observation of N3389 on the same night the two questionable objects were seen. Even so, my feeling is that he has somehow confused his observations of N3367 and N3379 on the night when he also measured the two companions. Adding more mystery to the case is Peters's comment: "[N3371] was distinctly seen by me 1880, Mar. 2; but [GC]2198, the third of the 'triple nebula,' could not be found." There are two faint stars within two arcmin of JH's nominal position for N3371; perhaps Peters saw one of these. Dreyer notes in the GC Supplement that no other observer had seen either N3371 or N3373 at JH's positions. ===== NGC 3373 is probably identical with NGC 3389. See NGC 3371. ===== NGC 3382 is probably just two stars, if it is indeed anything on the sky. It was found by the fourth Earl of Rosse on 5 April 1874, who provided this description: "About 4 min p [NGC 3432]. pF, cL, R, bM, *14 mag in centre. *9 Pos 238.0, Dist 173.7." There is no nebula within a reasonably large field around the nominal position that matches that description. On 24 March 1878, LdR (or his observer at the time, Dreyer himself) noted "4.0 min p and 6 arcmin +- n of [N3432]. vF, S, irr R, only a S group of sts. *9 Pos 192.0 deg, Dist 162.9 arcsec." This position is about an arcmin east- northeast of two faint stars where there is nothing else to be seen. There is a 10th mag star south-southwest of the widely-separated pair, but neither its distance (about 160 arcsec) nor position angle (about 192 deg) from the pair closely match the first of LdR's measurements. The agreement with Dreyer's measurements, though, lends some credence to the identification, though. I've entered the mean position of the two stars in the main table, but it seems more likely to me that LdR misidentified his reference galaxy: rather than being N3432, it is perhaps some other object. ===== NGC 3384 is probably also NGC 3371, which see. ===== NGC 3385. See NGC 3386. ===== NGC 3386 and NGC 3387. John Herschel found these two and NGC 3385 (which is 4 arcmin south of N3386). They were reobserved by d'Arrest whose positions for N3385 and N3386 match Herschel's. However, d'Arrest placed N3387 very close following N3386. The Sky Survey shows nothing near d'Arrest's place except a very faint star that Herschel did not mention. The NGC adopted d'Arrest's position for NGC 3387. This turned out to be a mistake because very close to Herschel's position is what first looks like a double star, but is actually a star and a compact, high surface brightness galaxy. There is a star north following this double object that could well be Herschel's "B* near." Additional notes: CGCG calls the northern object "N3386/87" and notes it as a "double nebula." The MCG also calls it "N3386-7," but assigns the companion a magnitude of 19 and places it 0.3' north preceding -- which describes its position and appearance exactly, and which makes it far too faint and in the wrong position relative to N3386 to have been seen by Herschel or d'Arrest. ===== NGC 3387. See NGC 3386. ===== NGC 3388, found by Ainslie Common with his 36-inch reflector, is probably NGC 3425. The declination is about right; and though Common's RA is 3 min too small, he marked it "+-" and his brief description ("F, R") is appropriate. ===== NGC 3389 is probably also NGC 3373. See NGC 3371 for the story. ===== NGC 3392. See NGC 3394 and NGC 4512. ===== NGC 3394. JH's RA -- adopted in the GC and NGC -- is 45 seconds too large. WH's RA is much closer to the truth, though we can't blame JH for preferring his position to his father's. Dreyer noticed the difference but, lacking any other observations, could do no more than comment on it. The only confusion that this causes is with NGC 3392 which is about 4 arcmin northeast, not northwest as implied by JH's observations. Though WH's positions are 2-3 arcmin northwest of the objects, his relative position is good, as are his (and JH's) descriptions. Most modern catalogues seem to have got the identities straight. Also see NGC 4512 for more on the sweep in which JH found this object. ===== NGC 3395 = IC 2613, which see. ===== NGC 3396. See IC 2613. ===== NGC 3397 = NGC 3329, which see. ===== NGC 3398 = IC 644. Considerable confusion has surrounded the identification of this object and its neighboring galaxies. The original observation is due to William Herschel, who found a "vF, S, E 20deg sp nf, er" nebulae on 17 April 1789 2m 11s preceding, 0d 50' north of 44 UMa. Reducing these offsets, taking the proper motion of 44 UMa into account, gives the position (for 1950) 10 48 24, +55 41.1. There are four galaxies in the area that might be the one that Herschel saw. Here are data for them: RA (1950.0) Dec B_t PA Type MCG CGCG UGC Notes 10 48 29.0 +55 39 25 14.55 73 SA:(rs:)ab? +09-18-038 267-18 5954 * superposed 0.55 sp 10 48 31.8 +55 43 51 15.6 130 SA:(rs?)0^+ +09-18-039 267-19 -- 10 48 44.8 +55 39 04 -- 55: E2/S0^-: +09-18-041 -- -- 10 48 59.9 +55 51 56 14.82 20 SAB(s)cd III +09-18-043 267-22 5976 Sev F sts, knots, comps near On the face of it, UGC 5976 is the most likely candidate: it is second brightest, the position angle is correct, it is knotty, and it is the largest of the galaxies in the area. However, its position is well off of Herschel's, and it has the lowest surface brightness of any of the galaxies here. I think it is doubtful that Herschel would have picked it up while sweeping. Instead, Herschel's position falls near UGC 5954, the brightest galaxy of the four, and also the one with the highest surface brightness. This means that it is the one that Herschel would be most likely to see. The position angle is at least in the correct quadrant, and Herschel's note "extremely mottled" could well be due the presence of the star near south-preceding combined with the galaxy's bright nucleus and pseudo-ring of uneven brightness. Still, visual verification of this theory would be nice to have. Finally, the identity of the two IC objects in the area -- I644 and I646 -- is unambiguous. While Swift's positions are often none too good, they are at least adequate in this case. The offset in RA is about 12 time-seconds for both, while the declinations are within a minute of arc. I644 turns out to be identical to NGC 3398, while I646 is MCG +09-18-039. ===== NGC 3401 is lost. WH was the only one to observe it, his observation was apparently rushed (his description reads only, "eF, no time to verify"), and his data are not internally consistent. His table places it 5 min 42 sec preceding and 23 arcmin south of 56 Leonis. However, in his note in the 1912 Scientific Papers, Dreyer says, "In the sweep, it is 1.9 min p, 3 arcmin n of II 131 [N3423]." Reducing these two offsets leads to positions separated by 1 min and 5 arcmin. There is nothing at either position. Between five to ten arcmin southeast of the position reduced from the N3423 offset (10 46 45, +06 09.5; B1950.0), there are one or two asterisms of stars that WH might have picked up. The positions are far enough off, however, that I doubt these stars are WH's object. ===== NGC 3402 is most likely a reobservation of NGC 3411. Common admits that his positions are approximate, and his sparce description "F, R" is appropriate for the galaxy. LEDA has chosen a much fainter galaxy close to the NGC position. I doubt, however, that even a observer of Common's experience using his 36-inch reflector would be able to dig this out. ===== NGC 3403. See NGC 3752. ===== NGC 3404 = IC 2609. Common's declination for N3404 is about 14 arcmin off, though his RA is close. Even though Dreyer has the corrected NPD in the IC2 Notes (from Herbert Howe), he did not make the connection with IC 2609. Nor did Bigourdan, who redisovered the galaxy and made it a "nova". He searched twice for N3404 at its nominal position, but only saw some faint stars in the area. His observations of the galaxy are good, though; reduced with respect to a modern position for his comparison star, they fall within a few arcsec of the nucleus. Knox Shaw, in Helwan Observatory Bulletin No. 15, also made the correction to the Dec of the NGC object. He was also the first to suggest the identity, repeating the position of N3404 for I2609, but putting a question mark on the note: "? = NGC 3404. There is, however, a vF, vS neb. susp. 1.2 arcmin n and 0.4 arcmin f 3404." This, of course, is not IC 2609. ===== NGC 3423. See NGC 3401. ===== NGC 3425 is probably also NGC 3388, which see. ===== NGC 3430 is not IC 2613, which see, in spite of being noted identically equal to the IC number in CGCG. The IC number applies to NGC 3395 instead. ===== NGC 3432. See NGC 3382. ===== NGC 3436. This is Todd's 6th nebulous object found during his search for "the trans-Neptunian planet" with the USNO 26-inch refractor. As usual, he gives sketches of the field done through both the large refractor and its 5-inch finder. These clearly identify N3436 as CGCG 038-039. Also as usual, Todd's nominal position is well off. I hope he would have done better had he found his planet ... ===== NGC 3443. Swift's declination is 8.3 arcmin too small, but the identity is still clear. See IC 884 for more. ===== NGC 3446. See NGC 3366. ===== NGC 3457 is a bit of a puzzle. It was catalogued by JH who describes it as "Stellar. 2 or 3 stars with a nebulous blur observed by Mr. Bailey." (Is Mr. Bailey perhaps an observing assistant?) This is an excellent descripiton of IC 656 (a triple star, which see), but JH's position is very close to NGC 3460 (also which see). The description is persuasive, but JH usually does better with his positions: his declination is appropriate for either object, but his RA is 18 seconds off the triple star. Since it is only 1.5 seconds off the galaxy, that argues almost as persuasively for the identity with NGC 3460. Frankly, I'm undecided on this one, so have left the number ambiguous in the main table. ===== NGC 3460 and N3461 were first seen as a pair by LdR in 1854, then again in April of 1878. In March of that year, he says "Setting for this, I found an eS Cl with a * 12m in Pos 175.1 deg, Dist 305.0 arcsec." There is nothing in the area which matches this description as the star south-southeast of the galaxy is only 4 arcmin away, while that south-southeast of IC 656 (a triple star, which see) is over 6 arcmin distant. In LdR's 1880 monograph, Dreyer lists all the observations under the GC number for NGC 3457 (GC 2256 = h 793; which see), but as I note there, it's not clear that NGC 3460 was the object JH and his Mr. Bailey saw. Swift picked up the galaxy in 1885; it is the 9th nebula of more than a thousand which he catalogued as "novae." Given the difference in his RA and JH's (23 seconds), both he and Dreyer can be forgiven for thinking he had found a new nebula. Since there is no question about the identity of NGC 3461 -- it is the faint galaxy about 5.5 arcmin north-northeast of the brighter galaxy -- and since LdR saw the two as a pair twice, it makes sense to retain the number NGC 3460 for the bright object. I'm not so sure what to do about the number NGC 3457 (which see for more) -- it could belong to the brighter galaxy, or it could be for the triple star along with IC 656. ===== NGC 3461. See NGC 3460. ===== NGC 3465. Though credited only to JH in the NGC, this is also H III 967. WH found the galaxy on 2 April 1802, but it -- and the other fourteen in sweep 1096 -- has a large, systematic error in its position. Dreyer sorted out the problem in his notes to his 1912 edition of WH's Scientific Papers. See NGC 3752 for more. Also see NGC 3484 for an unsolved mystery possibly related to NGC 3465 -- but probably not. ===== NGC 3474. See IC 884. ===== NGC 3476 = NGC 3480 (which see) and NGC 3477. The two smaller numbers apply to nebulae found by Marth. His relative positions are good, but are offset from the true positions by 3 arcmin in declination. His descriptions are apt, so there is little doubt about the identifications. ===== NGC 3477. See NGC 3476. ===== NGC 3479 = NGC 3502, which see. ===== NGC 3480 = NGC 3476 is the 11th in Ainslie Common's list of nebulae found by him with his 36-inch reflector in 1880. None of his positions are very good, and this one seems to be worse than most -- there are no galaxies within 10 arcmin of his place. However, NGC 3476, the largest and brightest of a group, is about 12 arcmin southwest. It would probably match Common's scanty description ("Small, stellar"), even as seen in a fairly large telescope. It is possible that NGC 3480 is the same galaxy as NGC 3490. But that is also one of Common's discoveries (on the same night? he does not give us dates of observation), and is a fainter object as well. So, I think it a less likely candidate. ===== NGC 3484 is lost. JH gives a position, suggests that it might be H. III 967 (but that is NGC 3465), and says "A very doubtful object." That's it. Dreyer searched for this on the Greenwich plates that he asked to have taken of the area covered by one of WH's very strange sweeps (see NGC 2938 and NGC 3752 for more). I've searched for it on the POSS1 prints. There are no candidate galaxies within 30-40 arcmin of JH's position. So, we just have to take JH's word for it -- "A very doubtful object," indeed! ===== NGC 3487. Swift's RA is about 35 seconds of time too small, but his Dec is good, and his description appropriate, for UGC 6092. ===== NGC 3489. See NGC 3498. ===== NGC 3490. Common's RA is marked "+-", but it is close enough to CGCG 066-080 (and the Dec is within an arcmin), to make the identification pretty certain. There are other equally bright galaxies around (including NGC 3480, which see), but none at the right declination. ===== NGC 3494 is most likely the double star 8-9 arcmin north of NGC 3495. Tempel says only (in a very crude translation by yrs trly), "Six arcmin north of the middle knot [of three in N3495], I repeatedly saw a very small nebula, which at first sight I took to be [part of] N3495." There is nothing in the implied position (calculated by Dreyer from N3495's position), but the double is only 3 arcmin further north, and is of similar brightness to other stars that Tempel mistook for nebulae. ===== NGC 3495. See NGC 3494. ===== NGC 3497 = NGC 3525 = NGC 3528 = IC 2624. This object may hold the record as the one with the most NGC and IC numbers. It was independently discovered four different times, first by WH. As Dreyer noted in 1912 (MN and Scientific Papers), there is a 6 minute error in the CG/NGC RA. Re-reducing WH's data in the Scientific Papers leads to the correct position. JH found it next during his stay at the Cape of Good Hope. He was also the first to see NGC 3528's brightest companion (N3529 = I2625). He got the identity with H III 824 correct in his Cape Observations, but separated his father's nebula from his brighter one for the GC. This suggests that the six-minute error is JH's rather than CH's. Dreyer copied the GC position into NGC, so it was not until his work on WH's papers that he noticed the discrepancy. Ormond Stone was the next in line -- his position is unusually good: only a minute of time off (his entry is NGC 3525). The identity is nevertheless pretty sure as there are no other nebulae in the area that he would have called magnitude 12.0. Finally, Lewis Swift picked up the pair in 1898. His RA is nearly correct, but his declination for N3528 = I2624 is about 5 arcmin too far south, nearly equal with that for N3529 = I2625. Again, there can be little doubt about the identity as Swift describes the brighter of the pair as "considerably bright;" there are no other galaxies near that are bright enough for that description. It was his observation that gave the pair their IC numbers. ===== NGC 3498 is probably the triple star three arcmin northwest of WH's position. Dreyer reprints WH's full note in which he says, "eF, not S. I had some doubt and put on 240, but there being no stars very near it, I could not adjust the focus, and therefore could not verify it." Dreyer also notes that d'A could not find the nebula during repeated attempts when N3489 was seen easily. ===== NGC 3500 is given as a double nebula with one number in the NGC, while JH in GC assigns two numbers with a single position. In each catalogue, the position comes from WH's observations on the night of 2 April 1801 which suffer from large, systematic position errors (see NGC 3752 for more). Dreyer more or less sorted out the problems for his edition of WH's Scientific Papers, based on accurate positions measured on 30-inch reflector plates taken at Greenwich in 1910 or 1911 (see MNRAS 71, 509, 1911). Unfortunately, neither Dreyer nor the Greenwich observer(s) assign NGC numbers to all of the galaxies in that list (I have those listed in my note to NGC 3752). I've taken a bit of a liberty here, and have split out WH's two numbers, III 967 and III 968, giving the first to NGC 3465 (which see), and the second to NGC 3500. I follow Dreyer's lead on the first, but use NGC 3500 for the second where he does not. ===== NGC 3502 = NGC 3479. The descriptions and declinations of the two entries (Nos. 180 by Leavenworth, and 181 by Stone) in the first Leander McCormick list are much the same, but the RA of the following nebula is 4 minutes of time too large. This is in the same sense as many other of the LM nebulae, so the identity is pretty certain. The suggestion in RNGC that the galaxy 50 arcmin north and a few tenths of a minute preceding Leavenworth's position strikes me as considerably less likely since RA errors are more common in the LM lists than Dec errors, though these also occur, of course. ===== NGC 3505 is perhaps a reobservation of NGC 3508 (which see). Even though JH's position is over 3/4 deg off in Dec, his description fits very well, including the "star 14 near." JH found it during his stay at the Cape. The large position error is bothersome, but there is nothing else within several degrees that matches the description. ===== NGC 3508 = IC 2622 (which see) and is probably also = NGC 3505 (also which see). WH called this "small" while his son saw it as "vL" -- WH is closer to the truth. Both positions are good, so there is no doubt that both men were looking at the same object. Similarly, Swift's note "... looks like a D *" in his description makes it clear that he, too, was looking at the same galaxy. In his case, however, the position is off by a few arcminutes to the northeast. ===== NGC 3514. See NGC 3520. ===== NGC 3518 = NGC 3122 = NGC 3110. In the original AJ paper, Stone notes, "In same field with nebula discovered by Stephan." This is a bit puzzling as none of Stephan's nebulae are within 5 degrees of Stone's nominal position. Stone has left us a sketch, too, with the same nominal position on the cover sheet. The sketch shows a nice double nebula with four stars nearby. Again, there is nothing on the sky within 5 degrees of the nominal position that matches the sketch. So, I assumed some sort of error in Stone's position and began looking at possible digit errors. After ruling out a few, I found NGC 3122 in Stephan's 13th list (its number 54 there) just an hour of time preceding Stone's position. Checking his sketch against the PSS, I found that the "double nebula" is actually the central bulge, and a very bright arm to the southeast, of a single galaxy. Furthermore, one of the "stars" sketched by Stone is the nucleus of an interacting companion galaxy, MCG -01-26-013. Were it not for the sketch, I would assign the NGC number to this companion (though the position angle is more than 20 degrees off Stone's estimate of 110 deg). As is, I am tempted to put the number on just the arm -- but that does not match Stone's description, either. By default, then, N3518 = N3122 = N3110 (which see for another story). ===== NGC 3520 is another of the Leander McCormick discoveries, this one by Leavenworth. His nominal position is close to an asterism of 4 or 5 stars spread over an area of 0.8 by 0.6 arcmin, but his description (m = 15.3, D = 0.4, iR, gpmbM, sev vF sts inv) does not match the appearance of the stars. In addition, they are too bright, being 13 to 15th magnitude. A more likely match is to ESO 570- G004, an interacting triple or quadruple system 1 min 35 sec east and 5 arcmin south of the nominal position. It matches Leavenworth's description pretty well. Other possible matches include the double star at 11 01 55.6, -17 40 23; and NGC 3514 = ESO 570- G001 at 11 01 32, -18 30.7. These don't match the description as well as the interacting system, however, so I view them as less likely to be Leavenworth's object. ===== NGC 3523 is H. II 904 from WH's sweep 1096 of 2 April 1801; all the positions in that sweep suffer from large, systematic errors. See NGC 3752 for more. ===== NGC 3525 = NGC 3497 (which see) = NGC 3528 = IC 2624. ===== NGC 3526 = NGC 3531, which see. ===== NGC 3528 = NGC 3497 (which see) = NGC 3525 = IC 2624. ===== NGC 3529 = IC 2625. See NGC 3497. ===== NGC 3531 = NGC 3526. Holden misidentified the star he noticed 46.5 seconds preceding the galaxy. When the correct star is used (BD +7 2412, not 2413 as Holden wrote), his position falls close to that of NGC 3526 = Marth 215. The descriptions are virtually identical, and Holden notes the star just southwest of the galaxy. Spitaler was the first to suggest the identity. He found IC 670 near Holden's position, but that is fainter and does not agree with either of the earlier descriptions, so Spitaler -- correctly -- called I670 a "nova." ===== NGC 3537 is an interacting galaxy pair about 15 arcmin north-northwest of N3541, and may have been found by Ainslie Common on the same night that he found the latter (though he does not give us the dates of his observations). His position and description is pretty good, being only about 1.5 arcmin off in Dec. The NGC position is even better, coming from two micrometric measurements by Tempel in 1881 and 1882. Nevertheless, RNGC has misidentified it, giving the number to the galaxy that is properly called NGC 3541 (which see). Curiously, Vorontsov-Velyaminov skipped over the object for MCG, though he has included many other even fainter interacting pairs as well as N3541. There is a bit of a mystery about Tempel's observations, too. He lists them as separate entries in his table of new nebulae in his fifth paper with no indication that they might refer to the same object. However, his positions -- once precessed to a common equinox -- are within a few arcsec of being identical. Tempel mentions a "star" on one side of the nebula in his second observation, but not the first. The nebula is described as fainter the first night, too, being a (WH) class III nebula rather than class II-III. On both nights, however, he mentions a faint "star" in the middle of the nebula. I suspect that both his observations apply to the brighter of the two galaxies; the "star" on the side of the nebula is almost certainly the fainter object, seen only on the better night. ===== NGC 3538 is a double star found by d'A. It is identified in the MNRAS 71, 509, 1911 article which helps sort out one of WH's sweeps suffering from large, systematic position errors (see NGC 3752 for more). ===== NGC 3540 = NGC 3548, which see. ===== NGC 3541. Common's position from his short Copernicus list is very close to 15 arcmin south of MCG -02-29-003, and is within 0.2 min in RA. His description is appropriate for the galaxy as it would be seen in a 36-inch telescope, so the position is probably due to his misreading the declination circle. RNGC has the object as non-existent. See NGC 3537 for more on this field. ===== NGC 3544 = NGC 3571. NGC 3544 was found 8 Jan 1886 UT by Ormond Stone with the Leander McCormick 66-cm refractor. The cover sheet on his sketch of the object (made 13 Jan 1886 UT) bears the note "near but prob. not G.C. 2330," in addition to the usual dates, position, magnification, and his initials. The position on the cover sheet is given as "11h 4.0m, -17d 41m." This was rounded off in RA to "11 4" in AJ 7, 9, 1886 where the discovery was published. The published paper also notes "G.C. 2330?" and there is no object at Stone's position. Stone's sketch also shows the elongated galaxy in the correct position angle. Unfortunately, the nearby field stars are not shown clearly on the sketch. A few specks on my copy are probably dust on the photocopier, but more or less correspond to nearby stars which Stone could have seen with the big refractor. Finally, the positions in the first two lists of nebulae found at LM are often 1-2 minutes of time west of the true positions. Assuming the identity with N3571, this is one of those cases. The NGC position for N3571 comes from William Herschel's single discovery observation on 8 March 1789, but is good enough to identify the galaxy unambiguously (the position was later verified by Bigourdan at Paris in 1888 and 1900, Kobold at Strassburg in 1901, Porter at Cincinnati in 1906 and 1908 -- though curiously, first by Leavenworth at Leander McCormick in 1887). The galaxy is just bright enough for Shapley-Ames, and it has been listed there and in the susequent literature under N3571 as the NGC position for that number is more nearly correct than the NGC position for N3544. So, in spite of Paturel's use of the number N3544 in RC3 (he perhaps followed ESO-B which has the listing as "N3544=N3571"), we should retain N3571 for consistency. ===== NGC 3548 = NGC 3540. Both numbers are from JH, but his position for N3548 is 1 min 9 sec too far east. This probably represents a 1 minute error somewhere along the line from observation to final position, but without JH's original papers, finding the error will be difficult. The identity of the two numbers is assured by JH's notes (for NGC 3540) "... a * 7m p, distance 7 arcmin to 8 arcmin" and (for N3548) "... a * 8m precedes." The star is very close to 8 arcmin preceding, and is about 25 arcsec south. ===== NGC 3550. See NGC 3552. ===== NGC 3551 and NGC 3555 are probably the two brightest galaxies in Abell 1177. Swift's RA's are just +1 minute of time in error. RNGC suggests that the brightest galaxy is NGC 3555. This would make N3551 one of the triple system about 2 arcmin southwest. However, these galaxies are considerably fainter than the second brightest galaxy in the cluster, which is about 3.5 arcmin to the northeast. There is also a star close to the middle of the three, and I think that the ensemble would appear as a "small nebulous cluster." Swift describes his object as "eeF, vS, R, difficult; south of two." His second he calls, "vF, R, n of 2." It may seem odd that he would call the brighter galaxy the fainter, but it has a lower surface brightness, and could well appear fainter at the eyepiece. Unfortunately, Swift's relative position between the two galaxies (10 seconds of time, and 30 seconds of arc) matches neither the RNGC interpretation, nor my own. So, the positions don't help us much in this case. We need some visual observations to check Swift's descriptions. ===== NGC 3552 and NGC 3553. William Herschel found two objects in 1785, and reobserved them in 1790, providing them with separate positions then. John Herschel has several sweeps over the area, finding four objects altogether. D'Arrest observed the same four galaxies, and picked up a fifth about 10 arcmin south. A sixth was found in 1885 by Bigourdan who also provided accurate positions for the other four (he also has one observation of a "nova" in the field, but his estimated position points at blank sky; see the discussion of this under NGC 3561). These six nebulae were included in NGC. Lord Rosse did not observe (or at least left no record of) any of them. If he had, there would almost certainly be more than the six objects in NGC that there are, since these six NGC objects are the brightest in the cluster Abell 1185. At least two other "historical" observations of Abell 1185 exist. First, Kobold measured accurate positions in 1902 for five objects here (one, which he called "Kobold 13," was discovered by him). One of his positions (for N3552) points at blank sky. Three other of his positions are systematically off the galaxies by about 20 arcsec. Because of the supposed care with which Kobold did his work, Hubble (in his PhD thesis, published in 1917) was misled into questioning his own work in the area where he measured positions and estimated types for several dozen galaxies. We'll come back to this particular problem in a bit. With all these positions and observations, one can be excused for believing that all is well, and that we know exactly which NGC number applies to which object. Not true! Only the numbers for three of the six NGC galaxies are pretty solid (N3550, N3554, and N3558). Questions arise for the other three. If we restrict ourselves to the early observations, we can be pretty sure which objects were seen by the Herschels and by d'Arrest -- the brightest five galaxies. While the positions are not exact, they are good enough to pin down the correct objects. The problems begin with Bigourdan's observations. While his positions (reduced using GSC positions for his comparison stars) are excellent, he assigned the number N3553 to the object which John Herschel and d'Arrest called N3552. For N3552, he chose a faint galaxy about an arcminute south-preceding. It has a brighter star superposed -- it is actually this star which Bigourdan measured; he describes the two objects as a single faint nebulous spot. Dreyer adopted Bigourdan's position for N3553. It's no surprise then, that the NGC positions for N3552 and 3553 are very close -- they apply to the same object. For this catalogue, we've followed historical precedent, and assigned the number N3552 to the brighter north-following object, leaving the south-preceding object (the one first seen by Bigourdan) as N3553. This is counter the prevailing idea that lower NGC numbers are always preceding, but explicitly acknowledges the actual history of the observations. Well, I promised a brief discussion of Kobold's and Hubble's data. Kobold's mistake, not found by Hubble, was a transposition of two numbers in the declination measurement of his comparison star with respect to an FK1 reference star (the comparison star is actually the same star used by Bigourdan for most of his measurements). This transposition (instead of -9' 42.5" as used and published by Kobold, read -9' 24.5") resulted in a systematic error of 18.6" in the declinations of N3550, N3552, N3554, and K13. Once corrected, the positions of N3550, N3554, and K13 agree very well with those measured by Bigourdan, by Hubble, and with those in GSC. However, Kobold's position for N3552 points at blank sky -- there is nothing within 3 arcmin in any direction brighter than the POSS1 plate limit. I suspect that Kobold's offsets apply to another star/galaxy pair, but I've not been able to find which objects would fit (I admit to not having looked very hard; perhaps a reader could unravel the mystery). In any event, Kobold's systematic error misled Hubble into thinking that his positions, measured on a plate taken with the 24-inch reflector at Yerkes Observatory, were somehow incorrect. In the end, however, Hubble printed his own positions and identifications. His positions are quite good, but his identifications are wrong for N3552 (he got K13) and N3554 (he got N3552); he did not identify N3553 at all -- but it is his number 81 in his Table XI. ===== NGC 3553. See NGC 3552. ===== NGC 3554. See NGC 3552. ===== NGC 3555. See NGC 3551. ===== NGC 3558. See NGC 3552. ===== NGC 3559 = NGC 3560, which see. ===== NGC 3560 = NGC 3559. During his MicroSky work, Glen Deen could not find NGC 3560. There is indeed nothing in its position, copied exactly from the GC by Dreyer, and before that from JH's 1833 catalogue. Checking that catalogue, though, I found that JH himself equates his 834th object with his father's III 79. The descriptions are similar, and Sir John himself says, "The PD of the working list is 6 arcmin out, owing to which I have often before looked for it in vain." So, he must have had the correct polar distance in front of him when he wrote this. But his NPD is exactly 50 arcmin out. I suspect that the 1833 NPD suffers from a typographical error: in place of "77 53 50," read "77 03 50." D'Arrest also noticed the 6 arcmin problem (he also marks the name III 79 with a question mark, and does not mention JH's number), and has two observations of this to Sir John's one. Thus, it is d'Arrest's presumably more accurate position that Dreyer adopted for NGC 3559. However, Dreyer had only JH's position for h834 to use. This is exactly 50 arcmin in declination out from d'Arrest's correct position for III 79. Since Sir John had included h834 in GC as a separate object, Dreyer followed JH's precedent. So, we are left with two numbers for the same object. Curiously, though, neither Dreyer nor JH have any note in GC or NGC about the identity, which JH himself had noted over 30 years earlier. ===== NGC 3561 is usually taken in modern catalogues as the entire double system Arp 105 = VV 237. However, the brighter (southern) of the two interacting galaxies is the one seen and measured by the visual observers, and by Hubble in his 1917 thesis. This is the one that I have labeled N3561 in the main position table. There is, however, an intriguing observation of a "nova" by Bigourdan about 15 arcsec north of the northern component of Arp 105. The right ascension offset estimated by Bigourdan, however, places the nova in a blank sky field four seconds of time preceding the galaxy. I wonder, though, if Bigourdan in fact saw the galaxy, but misplaced it because of its faintness. The question is a bit academic now, since the observation only exists in Bigourdan's list; he apparently did not publish it in any of his lists of new nebulae, so it did not receive an NGC or IC number. See NGC 3552 for more discussion about this field. ===== NGC 3565 and NGC 3566. These two objects were given the same poor position by Ormond Stone in the first Leander McCormick list. The identification with the close pair of galaxies listed in the table was made by noting that many of the first list nebulae were placed about two minutes of time too far west. Subtracting two minutes from the RA puts the position very close to the faint pair. The identification of this pair as NGC 3565 and 3566 is obviously not very secure because the discovery position is poor, and there are no sketches of the objects among Stone's papers. Another possibility is that N3565 and 3566 are identical to IC 2623 and the star superposed just south. However, this would require a 4 minute error in Stone's RA, as well as a 4 minute declination error. While a few of the Leander McCormick positions are indeed this far off, I think that this possibility is less likely. ===== NGC 3566. See NGC 3565. ===== NGC 3571 = NGC 3544, which see. ===== NGC 3575 = NGC 3162. D'Arrest's RA is one hour too large. He must have had a bad night on 21 February 1863 since N2753 and N3760 (both of which see) are his other two novae from that night. In any event, when the one hour correction is made, d'A's position falls within one arcmin of NGC 3162, and his description is perfect for the object, including the 11th mag star 3 arcmin west, and the 16th mag star 1 arcmin southeast (actually superposed on the southeast arm of the galaxy). ===== NGC 3576. Even though Lauberts marks the identity as questionable, there is no doubt that this is the object that JH saw. His figure shows all six of the bright patches of nebulosity in the area, and matches the appearance of the sky pretty well. He notes that the position for this object (and a couple of others) comes from two figures he sketched for the group. This may account for his RA being a bit off for this southwest patch: it is shown too close to the rest of the nebulae in his figure. The other nebulae are NGC 3579, 3581, 3582, 3584, and 3586. JH's positions and descriptions for them are very good. ===== NGC 3579. See NGC 3576. ===== NGC 3581. See NGC 3576. ===== NGC 3580 is probably not IC 675, which see for more. ===== NGC 3582. See NGC 3576. ===== NGC 3584. See NGC 3576. ===== NGC 3586. See NGC 3576. ===== NGC 3594. The NGC position falls between two galaxies that could be the object WH saw. The "standard" identification is with UGC 06286. Indeed, WH's position is closer to this object (about 8 arcmin) than to the other possibility, CGCG 268-006. This second galaxy, however, is brighter and smaller, so has a higher surface brightness. Still, WH's nominal position is over 12 arcmin away. In neither case, by the way, is there a possible digit error that might explain the poor nominal position. In the end, I have a slight preference for the UGC galaxy, but have retained both galaxies in the table. ===== NGC 3604 = NGC 3611. WH's RA is one minute too small, but his description is apt for NGC 3611. Dreyer, without benefit of wide-field plates, comments in his notes to WH's catalogue, "Should probably be rejected, together with III 88 (sic) and III 598 (NGC 3509), the only other neb this night, as there was fog `which indeed was so strong as to make everything swim about me.' " NGC 3509 is also a minute of time east of WH's RA, reinforcing Reinmuth's suggestion of the identity of N3604 with N3611. I'm not sure, however, which object Dreyer means by "III 88." III 88 is NGC 3401 (which see), and was found two and a half years earlier than the other two objects. In WH's catalogues, only NGC 3509 is noted as being found on the same night (30 Dec 1786) as N3604. Did Dreyer mean to have only III 598 in his comment? Probably so, but we can't be sure without seeing his MS. ===== NGC 3611 = NGC 3604, which see. ===== NGC 3622. See NGC 4512. ===== NGC 3630. See NGC 3645. ===== NGC 3643, NGC 3644 = IC 684, and NGC 3647. Even though Marth's positions for N3643, 3644, and 3647 are pretty accurate, this has not prevented later observers from misidentifying these at one time or another. In particular, Bigourdan's "N3647" is a star, and he labeled N3644 as "new" (his positions for both are accurate). Thus, this latter galaxy received an IC number (I684) as well as its NGC number. Kobold got the right galaxies for N3643 and N3644, but both he and Wirtz list N3644 as "NGC 3645(?)" (though Kobold does have an erratum saying that though the identity is uncertain it is probably N3644). Finally, RNGC has misidentified N3643 and N3645 (which see), and CGCG makes yet another object in the group N3645. ===== NGC 3644 = IC 684, which see. Also see NGC 3643. ===== NGC 3645. This, and five other NGC/IC objects (N3643, N3644, and N3647, which see; and I683 and I684), lie in a relatively crowded field. There has been considerable confusion about the identifications here because of the crowding -- and because the NGC position of the (presumeably) brightest object, N3645, lies in a blank area of sky a few arcminutes northwest of the group center. This brightest object was found first by William Herschel on 23 Feb 1784. He placed it 6m 30s preceding and 7' north of 84 (tau) Leo. The NGC position comes from John Herschel's single uncertain observation during Sweep 143; the object is h867 in his 1833 list, though he notes both it and h861 as being II 32. This latter object is considerably brighter than any of the galaxies in the group, and precedes it by 1.3 min. JH saw it during two sweeps (141 and 238), but did not pick it up during Sweep 143. Similarly, h867 was seen only during Sweep 143, but not during sweeps 141 and 238. That, combined with the relative brightness of the object compared to those in the group and JH's uncertain position for h867, strongly suggests that h867 = h861; i.e. N3645 = N3630. N3645 is also credited to Tempel who has a long discussion of the field in AN 2212 (pp.51-2). I've not translated this yet, but I do not easily see any precise offset from a known object in the text. Is it possible that Tempel was misled by JH's attribution of H II 32 to two different objects? A translation is clearly needed. ===== NGC 3646. See IC 682 = NGC 3649 where I suggest that Swift's note of a "very faint star close north preceding" actually applies to his observation of this galaxy. He somehow confused it with his observation of the fainter galaxy. Curiously, WH puts this object, as well as NGC 3649 which he observed in the same sweep, into his third ("very faint nebulae") class of objects. This is fully three magnitudes brighter than N3649. The only reason I can see is that the surface brightness is lower. JH has them right, though the final "brightness" in GC and NGC ("cF") is an unsatisfactory compromise. ===== NGC 3647. See NGC 3643. ===== NGC 3649 = IC 682, which see. ===== NGC 3676 is MCG -02-29-029. The declination given by Muller and the NGC is about 30 arcmin too large, but the description is accurate. Muller's note, in particular, "star 10 north-following, star 10 south-following" is correct: each star is 0.95 arcmin from the galaxy. ===== NGC 3679 and NGC 3915 are H III 112 and III 113, both found the night of 24 April 1784, and both refered to the same star, 74 Leo (SAO 138102). There is nothing at either position reduced from WH's offsets from this star. The other brighter objects found on that night (N4697 and N4941 = H I 39 and 40; and N4593, N4602, and N4989 = H II 183,4,5) were all compared with 51 Virginis and are close enough to the derived positions to identify without problems. JH, however, noted that Mayer 510 (SAO 138798), taken later in the same sweep, is a better comparison star. He determined the positions of the two objects given in GC using this star, and Dreyer adopted these positions for NGC, too. He also discusses the problem of the comparison stars in a note to NGC, as well as in the Notes to his 1912 edition of WH's papers. Unfortunately, there are still no nebulae at either position. At this point, it's worth noting that, regardless of which star is used, WH's relative position between the two objects is the same: 24 minutes 12 seconds in RA and 49 arcmin in Dec. This suggests that we should look for objects matching his descriptions separated by these amounts. Now, other observers begin to cloud the picture. Dreyer credits Peters with an observation of N3915. But as with WH's observation, there is nothing at Peters's position (he says that he determined it by plotting the object on charts of his own construction). His note for N3915 reads, "AR in GC from 15 sec to 20 sec too small, and also the declination differs rather much. The nebula is vL, and not eS, as H. III. 113 has it." Just what nebula he saw is something of a mystery. It could have been IC 2963, but Peters's RA is over a minute off, and his Dec is nearly 2 arcmin off as well. Spitaler has a series of good micrometric observations of nebulae which includes N3679. He makes it the object we now call MCG -01-29-021 = Markarian 1294. But this is nearly 15 arcmin away from the nearest of WH's positions, and does not match his description of being "very near a very bright star." Dreyer makes a note of Spitaler's observation in his IC1 Notes, and again in the 1912 Scientific Papers Notes. So, we're left with a puzzle: what did WH and Peters see? Let's assume that WH's descriptions are good [for N3679 he says, "eF, cL, R, r (v nr vB *)" and for N3915, "eF, eS w 240. 2 vS sts and nebulosity."]. The only objects in the area matching these descriptions are MCG -01-29-012 (at 11 19 15.35, -05 29 00.6; B1950.0 from GSC) which has SAO 138156 about 2 arcmin to the north, and the previously uncatalogued galaxy at 11 44 22.20, -04 54 35.4 (again, GSC for B1950.0) which has a somewhat fainter star superposed about 15 arcsec to the southwest of its bright core. The relative positions of these two galaxies in 1784 was 25 min 04 sec, and 35.3 arcmin, not wildly off WH's "observed" offsets -- but not very close, either. In the end, I've taken MCG -01-29-012 and the uncatalogued object as perhaps the two that WH saw. It's clear, however, that there are unexplained large errors in WH's offsets for these two objects. So, these identifications are quite uncertain, and could well be completely wrong. ===== NGC 3682. See NGC 4512. ===== NGC 3685 is CGCG 039-192. Though Todd's position is off (as it is for nearly all of the nebulae he found during his search for "the trans-Neptunian planet") his sketchs of the field are very good, as are his measurements of distances between stars and nebulae within each field. In this case, he found the higher surface brightness component of a pair of CGCG galaxies; the other is UGC 06466, a pretty low surface brightness barred spiral. ===== NGC 3690 and IC 694 (which see for more discussion). These are not, as is often supposed, the two components of the peculiar interacting system, Arp 299. Instead, NGC 3690 refers to these two peculiar galaxies, while IC 694 is the small elliptical or lenticular about an arcmin northwest. Lord Rosse clearly resolved the two components in at least one of his observations, and he also noted IC 694 as an "appendage" to the north-west of the pair. Swift later rediscovered the IC object; this led Dreyer to assign it its own number in the first IC. Note, too, that the numbers NGC 3690 and IC 694 are incorrectly assigned to Arp 296 in the tables in the Arp Atlas. This has further exacerbated the naming problem, as Arp 296 is another interacting pair just a few arcmin following Arp 299. ===== NGC 3694. See NGC 3698 = NGC 3695. ===== NGC 3695 = NGC 3698, which see for more. Ball's description of the field with this, NGC 3694, and NGC 3700 is accurate. So, even though the NGC position is off, there is no doubt about the correct identifications. ===== NGC 3698 = NGC 3695. In March 1867, Ball found two nebulae here forming a triangle with h899 = NGC 3694, and suspected others. He did not measure the offsets from JH's nebula (he comments, in fact, "There being no great difference of brightness, it is not easy to see which is h899," but did give the relative positions of "the 2 nf ones, Pos 310 deg, Dist 339''." These numbers are accurate for NGC 3695 and NGC 3700. JH's position for NGC 3694 is very good, too. Nine years later, Dreyer re-examined the field, noting that "nnp [h899] is a pS, eeF neb [= N3695] in Pos 357.2, Dist 256.7." This is actually a star. Dreyer goes on, "About 15' n and a few minutes f is another eF, vS neb [= N3700] with an eF * 2' sf." This is actually a reobservation of NGC 3695, (the star is indeed 2 arcmin southeast), though Dreyer took it to be a new nebula and gave it a new number, NGC 3698. ===== NGC 3700. Though the position is off, Ball's description of the field, including his measurement of the offset between this and NGC 3695, makes clear the nebulae he found. See NGC 3698 = NGC 3695 for more. ===== NGC 3703 is one of Ormond Stone's discoveries. He made a sketch of the field, but it only vaguely matches the galaxy (and its surrounding stars) 10 arcmin north and 25 seconds preceding the published nominal position (the position on the sketch is another 30 seconds on east). In particular, the orientation of the sketch is unusual if the identification is correct -- south is normally at the top of the sketches; this has south at about 10 o'clock. Also, the brightest star shown on the sketch is actually the faintest on the sky. In the end, this is a possible identification, but no more. ===== NGC 3704 and 3707. This pair was found by Ainslie Common around 1880. His position for the pair is only approximate, but his description clearly identifies the nebulae, "2, F, R, on the parallel, star symmetrically placed between." The star is indeed there. The brighter object (N3704) was also seen (in 1878) by Wilhelm Tempel who published a micrometrically measured position for it in his fifth paper on nebulae. His descriptive note on the nebula reads, "Class III; a star 15m (nebulous?) follows 2 sec; near the comparison star is another fainter nebula." The star 2 sec following the measured nebula is the same one mentioned by Common. The positions that Dreyer adopted for NGC come from a letter to him from Tempel. In this letter, summarized by Dreyer in a note in IC2, Tempel says that he saw the brighter (which Dreyer mistakenly calls N3707) four times, but the fainter only once. Further, the position of the fainter comes from a sketch made on 25 May 1881, the same night on which Tempel measured the brighter. After quoting Common's description, Dreyer continues, "I assumed, perhaps erroneously, that 3704,07 are the same as Common's, the place of which is 11h 22m 57s, 100d 33.3m [1860], though Tempel's nebulae are not on the parallel." Dreyer's first assumption was correct, at least concerning the brighter nebula. What is wrong, however, is Tempel's place for the fainter. There is nothing in that position in spite of its being just about 2 arcmin north of his comparison star, and -- presumeably -- shown in that place on the sketch he sent to Dreyer. My guess is that Tempel somehow confused his observations, and that his note about the star and the fainter nebula refers to another field altogether. In any event, Common's observation is clear enough, even if his position isn't, to reliably assign the two numbers to the two galaxies in the field. Finally, the pair may also be IC 703 and IC 704 (which see). But the case for that is very weak. ===== NGC 3707. See NGC 3704. ===== NGC 3743, 3744, 3745, 3746, 3748, 3750, 3751, 3753, and 3754. The last seven of these are Copeland's Septet. The Notes to IC1 relate how the positions in NGC came to be calculated incorrectly. Briefly, Dreyer took Copeland's reference to the comparison star as "reddish" to apply to the wrong star. Thus, the differences between the NGC positions and the correct positions is a simple offset in RA and Dec. Here are tables showing corrected identifications and information for the Septet area in the four major catalogues from which we drew information for the RC2. the RNGC, Zwicky's CGCG, VV's MCG, and Milson's UGC. Here are identifications for the galaxies with objects listed in MCG, UGC, and CGCG: NGC MCG UGC CGCG (Vol. II, pp. 176 and 180) 3743 --- --- 11 33.2 +22 00, mp = 15.6 3744 --- --- 33.2 +23 16, mp = 15.4 3758 +04-27-073 --- 33.8 +21 52, mp = 14.8 3745 +04-28-004 --- ---- 3746 +04-28-005 06597 35.1 +22 17, mp = 15.3 3748 +04-28-007 --- 35.2 +22 18, mp = 15.5 3750 +04-28-008 --- 35.3 +22 15, mp = 15.2 3751 +04-28-009 06601* ---- 3753 +04-28-010 06602 -\ - 35.4 +22 16, mp = 14.6* 3754 +04-28-011 --- -/ *UGC 6601 - coordinates and magnitude wrong in UGC, but the Note clearly points to the correct object. *NGC 3753 are 3754 both included in the same CGCG entry. Finally, there is a bit of a mystery concerning the name "Copeland's Septet." When the de Vaucouleurs and I adopted this for RC2 (see Table 16b, page 52) in the early 1970's, we thought we were following our self-imposed rule to not provide new names for objects, but to merely copy those used in the literature. Since that time, I've been unable to find the source of the name. My query about this in the Webb Society Quarterly Journal (No. 90, 1992 October, page 41) has brought no response. It's possible, then, that we were the first to use the name. Wherever it came from, it is now in common use. ===== NGC 3744. See NGC 3743. ===== NGC 3745. See NGC 3743. ===== NGC 3746. See NGC 3743. ===== NGC 3747 is H. III 969, one of the fifteen nebulae found by WH on the night of 2 April 1801, where all the positions suffer from a large, systematic error. See NGC 3752 for more about this sweep. ===== NGC 3748. See NGC 3743. ===== NGC 3750. See NGC 3743. ===== NGC 3751. See NGC 3743. ===== NGC 3752. This is discussed in an article in Monthly Notices in 1911 where the anonymous author gives accurate positions for forty nebulae found on Royal Observatory, Greenwich (RGO in modern parlance) 30-inch plates covering the area of WH's sweep 1096 on 2 April 1801. WH's positions in that sweep are affected by a large, systematic error, so Dreyer had requested that the Astronomer Royal take the plates in an effort to sort out the problems. They largely succeeded, but the paper is incorrect in saying in a note that h917 = N3752; actually, N3752 = H II 905. Dreyer and the article's author correctly concluded that h917 and H II 905 are two different galaxies, but they got the NGC number on the wrong one. The MN note should actually read "NGC 3752 = No. 36 above = H II 905, but not h 917 = No. 38 above." This unfortunately leaves h917 without an NGC number. (Following the time-honored tradition of muddying the waters with suffixes, I suppose we could call it "NGC 3752A", but I've not done that. Yet. I may eventually change my mind.) Since John Herschel gave his own position, but his father's description, to GC 2460 = NGC 3752, and since it is clear that WH saw the brighter of the two galaxies (more on this below), the GC and NGC positions should be changed. To reach these conclusions, I re-reduced WH's offsets from his comparison stars (as given by Dreyer in the Scientific Papers) for all the objects in the sweep, using the SAO positions for the stars. The positions for the nebulae so found are very poor, ranging up to almost 6 minutes of time and 45 arcmin from the true positions. Nevertheless, there are no other galaxies in the area of WH's positions that could match his descriptions. By following along chronologically through the sweep, we can be pretty sure which galaxies correspond to which numbers in WH's list (only H III 966 = NGC 3197 is out of RA order, but its identity is clear from the declination). This includes N3752 which, as Steve Gottlieb independently suggested, is certainly H II 905. Further "proof" of the correctness of these identifications comes from a plot (shown in crude form below) of the differences between WH's positions and the true positions from the RGO plates. (By the way, I've verified the RGO positions with modern measurements.) The differences are systematic, increasing towards higher right ascension. Though WH used three different comparison stars for these observations, he used one of these, BD +78 317, for only one object; another, BD +78 412, for two; but the third, BD +76 393, for the remaining 12 objects. (Curiously, Dreyer says in the NGC note and in his note for his 1912 edition of WH's Scientific Papers that WH used only one star for all fifteen objects. This has led Wolfgang to speculate that Dreyer has changed the offsets from WH's originals published in PT; we'll have to check the original PT to see if this is true. Wolfgang also points out that the NGC positions for some of the fifteen nebulae cannot be derived from the Scientific Papers offsets.) For this third star in particular, the systematic errors are therefore quite well-determined. If corrected for these systematic errors, WH's positions would be good to his nominal accuracy of a few arcmin. To clinch this interpretation, I calculated the offset of John Herschel's position for h917 from the true position of N3752 = H II 905. The resulting points are coincidentally very close to the offset predicted if William Herschel had used BD +78 412 as his comparison star. But, as we can see on the graph, the points are very discrepant from the offset of the actual comparison star BD +76 393. So, again, N3752 is almost certainly II 905 and not h917. I can only guess at the cause of William Herschel's error: a clock running slowly perhaps? But since the declinations are also affected, this can be only part of the problem. So, there may have been some sort of other mechanical failure in the telescope, or maybe a curious reduction error. In any case, I'm now convinced, thanks to Steve's and Wolfgang's questioning, that the identifications that I've adopted here are the correct ones. Here is a list of the galaxies from the 1911 MNRAS paper, along with the NGC numbers, the numbers assigned by other observers, and the differences between WH's positions and the RGO positions. The objects flagged with asterisks are those found by WH during sweep 1096. MN NGC WH Others Delta RA Delta Dec (WH - RGO) 1* 2938 III 963 h 612 -1m 54s -17.8 arcmin 3* 2977 I 282 -3 17 -17.5 6* 3061 II 903 h 653 -1 49 -14.3 7* 3197 III 966 +1 34 + 6.9 8* 3144=3174 III 964 d'Arrest -2 16 - 2.1 9* 3155=3194 III 965 h 676, d'Arrest -1 53 - 0.9 11* 3183=3218 I 283 d'Arrest -2 25 + 1.2 13 3252 III 316 --- --- 15* 3329=3397 I 284 h 733 +4 01 +26.6 25 3403 II 335 h 767 --- --- 27* 3465 III 967 h 795 +0 50 +11.4 29* 3500 III 968 -1 33 +10.7 30* 3523 II 904 +1 12 + 9.9 34 3538 ... d'Arrest --- --- 36* 3752 II 905 +2 29 +14.8 37* 3747 III 969 +1 51 +12.7 38 .... ... h 917 (+5 22 +39.1) 39* 3901 III 970 +5 40 +42.9 40* 3890=3939 III 971 H III 940, d'Arrest +1 43 +25.3 Finally, here is a crude representation of the plot of the position differences, taken in the sense WH minus RGO: Delta Dec (arcmin) -- + Comparison stars used * = BD +76 393 +40 -- (*) N3752 if h 917 + = BD +78 412 x = BD +78 317 -- +30 -- -- * + +20 -- -- * N3752 if II 905 * +10 -- *** x -- * 0 -- * * -- -10 -- -- * -20 -- * * | | | | | | | 12h 11h30m 11h 10h30m 10h 9h30m 9h RA Delta RA (minutes) +6 -- + +5 -- (*) N3752 if h 917 +4 -- + +3 -- * N3752 if II 905 +2 -- * * x +1 -- * * 0 -- -1 -- * -2 -- * * * * * -3 -- * -4 -- | | | | | | | 12h 11h30m 11h 10h30m 10h 9h30m 9h RA ===== NGC 3753. See NGC 3743. ===== NGC 3754. See NGC 3743. ===== NGC 3758. See NGC 3743. ===== NGC 3760 = NGC 3301. As with N3575 = N3162 (which see), d'Arrest's RA is 1 hour too large (he measured both on the same night, 21 February 1863). In addition, his note "* 10-11 p 4.0 sec, 175'' south" should place the star north of the galaxy, not south. With these two changes, his single observation of his "nova" is in perfect accord with his three observations of NGC 3301. Dreyer notes (in the NGC Notes) Copeland's not finding the object at Birr, discovering instead "a large group of novae preceding it" (Copeland's Septet, which see under NGC 3743). He further comments in IC1 that the Strassburg observer (Kobold, who apparently first suggested the equality with N3301) also could not find N3760. ===== NGC 3771. Though the identifications of this and N3774 nearby are uncertain, a reasonably good fit can be made for this number to the galaxy at 11 39 05.9 -09 20 54 (ESGC). ===== NGC 3774. See NGC 3771. ===== NGC 3786. See NGC 3793. ===== NGC 3788. See NGC 3793. ===== NGC 3789 is much more likely to be MCG -01-30-015 than MCG -01-30-019. The western galaxy is much brighter, and Leavenworth's description matches the bar (which extends north-south) very well. The eastern galaxy is considerably fainter, almost round, and has a fainter companion about 30 arcsec west. Had Leavenworth seen this pair, he would more likely have described it as extended east-west. It's true that Leavenworth's position is closer to MCG -01-30-019 than to -015. However, his position is about 1.5 minutes east of -015, an error that many other of his observations share. ===== NGC 3790. See NGC 3807. ===== NGC 3792 is probably the double star listed in the table. Holden has two observations of it, noting in the second that the "Neb makes an isosceles triangle with DM 2523 and 2525." The only likely object making that triangle with the two BD stars is the double. ===== NGC 3793 and NGC 3797 are most probably stars. Tempel has this to say about them in his paper in AN 2439 (1882): "For the fine double nebula [GC] 2479-80 = h. 331-32 [should be 'h. 931-32' = N3786,8], I have one hasty sketch from 12 Febr. '82, which shows two very small nebulae +18 sec and +30 sec following the southern component [of the double nebula], which I cannot find catalogued." (He goes on to describe his observations of NGC 3786 and 3788.) There are two 15th magnitude stars at the appropriate offsets in RA, just a minute or two south of the declination of the brighter galaxies. For the NGC, Dreyer placed Tempel's two novae following the northern component, NGC 3788. This makes the RA's of the novae too large by 2-3 seconds, and displaces the positions well off the stars. This has misled RNGC to assign NGC 3793 to the much fainter galaxy VV 575 = CGCG 157-007 south- preceding NGC 3786,8. When the correct reference galaxy is used, the RA's come to within a second or two of the stars. Thus, these are almost certainly the objects that Tempel saw. ===== NGC 3794 = NGC 3804. There is no doubt that the objects are identical. Herschel's positions are 30 seconds of time apart, his descriptions are similar, and there is no galaxy at the position of NGC 3794. The RNGC got the wrong galaxy for NGC 3794, supposing that Herschel made a 1 degree error in the declination as well as a 1 minute error in RA. It is more likely that WH made a single smaller error rather than two larger ones. ===== NGC 3797. See NGC 3793. ===== NGC 3801. See NGC 3807. ===== NGC 3802. See NGC 3807. ===== NGC 3803. See NGC 3807. ===== NGC 3804. See NGC 3794. ===== NGC 3806. See NGC 3807. ===== NGC 3807 is a star, identified on LdR's diagram (it is labeled "C"). Other nebulae also shown on the diagram are N3790, N3801-03, and N3806, the first three observed by the Herschels, the last also seen by d'Arrest. ===== NGC 3810. See NGC 4368. ===== NGC 3817. See NGC 3848. ===== NGC 3819. See NGC 3848. ===== NGC 3820. See NGC 3848. ===== NGC 3822. See NGC 3848. ===== NGC 3825. See NGC 3848. ===== NGC 3826. See NGC 3830. ===== NGC 3828. The NGC position is within a minute of arc of the GSC position. Also, Bigourdan's original position, if reduced with respect to the GSC position for his comparison star, is within 3 arcsec. So how did CGCG -- and by extension, UGC -- miss the identification? Perhaps a mistake in precessing the position? In any event, the identification needs to be added to CGCG 1140.4+1646. The UGC Notes for UGC 6686 (6 arcmin east of NGC 3828) give data for the NGC galaxy, but only under the CGCG number. These notes, too, should have the NGC identification added. ===== NGC 3833. See NGC 3848. ===== NGC 3830 is probably the same galaxy as NGC 3826. The only observer to see N3830 (= h956) was John Herschel -- and his one observation is doubtful. His description reads (in full): "Cloudy; hardly discernable." This is from Sweep 416 of 19 April 1832. JH's position for N3830 follows that for NGC 3826 (= H II 341 = h954) by 43 seconds of time; the declinations are identical. In addition, N3826 was seen during three sweeps (115, 343, and 417), all different from the single sweep during which N3830 was found. JH's three positions for N3826 are all in agreement. My guess is that because of the clouds, JH did not zero Sweep 416 on stars as well as he usually did. This half-baked idea could be checked by comparing JH's RA's for other objects in the same sweep with modern RA's: are they also off in RA by about 40 arcsec of time? See NGC 898 where this sort of error has undoubtedly been made. Another, probably more correct guess, is that JH simply made an error in the RA. ===== NGC 3847 is just where JH put it, in spite of the note in IC2. Wolf chose the wrong galaxy for N3847 (his object is actually IC 2952); coincidentally, the difference in declinations is just 10 arcmin. See also NGC 3855 where I suggest that this galaxy might be NGC 3856. ===== NGC 3848 is probably NGC 3822, and NGC 3852 is probably NGC 3825. The two questionable identifications are a pair found by William Herschel on 15 March 1784, III 35 and III 36. He describes them as "Two on parallel, 3 or 4 arcmin distant. Both eF, vS," and assigns a single position to the pair. Dreyer, in the Notes to his 1912 edition of WH's papers, claims for N3848, "Observed by Bigourdan, place correct." For N3852, he says, "RA possibly 1 minute too great (see II 64 [NGC 4352]). Not found by Bigourdan." This is curious, as Bigourdan clearly states "Not seen, at least in a sure way" for N3848, and "Not seen" for N3852. Perhaps there is a note in one of Bigourdan's Comptes Rendus papers. In any case, Bigourdan has precise measurements for NGC 3822 and NGC 3825, and identifies them correctly. They are 2 minutes west (not 1 minute) of WH's positions for N3848 and N3852, and they match WH's description well. Other fainter galaxies in the area include NGC 3817, 3819, 3820, 3833, and several CGCG/MCG objects. Since N3822 and N3825 are the brightest of the lot, they are most probably the ones that WH picked up. ===== NGC 3849 = IC 730. Todd's sketches from 14 Dec 1877 positively identify the galaxy, though his position (read from the setting circles of the Naval Observatory's 26-inch refractor) is -- as usual -- well off. In spite of his poor position, he was able to recover the object on 11 Feb 1878, and changed his description of it from "large and nebulous" to "small, quite condensed, somewhat nebulous, and faint." The galaxy was rediscovered by Javelle about 15 years later. Aside from the uncertainty in the position (from the BD) of his comparison star, Javelle's position for the galaxy is very good. His description (with the 30-inch refractor at Nice) is accordant with Todd's second observation. ===== NGC 3852. See NGC 3848. ===== NGC 3855 may be IC 2953 and NGC 3856 may be NGC 3847. These were both found by d'A. Unfortunately, he provides only a crude position for the first; the second is mentioned only in his description, with not even an offset given. So, there have been several guesses made at the identities by Wolf, Spitaler, CGCG, and RNGC. I think they are all wrong, and that d'A probably saw I2953 and NGC 3847. These are the brightest galaxies in the area, so would be the ones most likely seen during a hurried observation. However, this too is a guess -- a better one, I think -- but still a guess. ===== NGC 3856. See NGC 3855. ===== NGC 3862 is not IC 2955. Bigourdan saw and measured both on the same nights, so the identity cannot be correct. ===== NGC 3874 is probably the double star that Reinmuth noted. WH's position is close following the double, and his description "vF, vS, left doubtful. Twilight" is appropriate. Dreyer notes that Bigourdan did not find the nebula; Bigourdan searched unsuccessfully for it twice. ===== NGC 3888. See NGC 3889. ===== NGC 3889. The NGC has this as 5' south of NGC 3888. This is incorrect; the original observation by Lord Rosse in 1852 places the nebula 5' north of NGC 3888. Of the three galaxies there, I've taken the brightest as N3889. [Note added June 1999: My old friend Tom DeMary has pointed out that the brief explanation above might not be enough to cover the situation. Here is a fuller story.] Lord Rosse's original observation of NGC 3888 in 1852 has a second nebula five arcmin north (he most likely saw the brightest of the three galaxies north and northeast, so that is the one I've taken). In 1878, Dreyer revisited the field, but found nothing to the north. Instead, he measured an object at a position angle of 167.5 deg with a distance of 340.5 arcsec from N3888. It was this measurement that led to the position and note in NGC for N3889. Using the DSS position for NGC 3888, Dreyer's measurement reduces to 11 45 03.36, +56 09 09.3. There is nothing at Dreyer's measured position. However, if he made a transcription error in his distance -- read 240.5 for 340.5 -- then his position falls close to a faint star (his position is 11 45 00.81, +56 10 47.0 for B1950.0; the star is at [end figures only] 01.51 and 52.6). It seems likely that this is the object that he measured and mistook as the nebula seen by Lord Rosse. ===== NGC 3890 = NGC 3939, which see. ===== NGC 3899 = NGC 3912. Though JH's position falls close to a very close double star (merged on POSS1), it is more likely that his observation refers to NGC 3912. His descriptions are the same, and his position for N3899 is just 1 minute of time west of N3912. Reinmuth first suggested the identity. ===== NGC 3901. This is one of fifteen nebulae found by WH on the night of 2 April 1801 which have positions affected by a large, systematic error. See NGC 3752 for more. ===== NGC 3905. Is this also possibly IC 2962 (which see)? I doubt it. ===== NGC 3908. Though Swift describes his object as "F, vS, R, mbM," I have my doubts that he could have seen the galaxy listed in the table. At 16th magnitude, it is too faint to have been included in CGCG, and it is not large enough to have captured VV's attention when he was compiling MCG. Still, there is nothing else in the area, or at reasonable digit errors, that Swift might have seen. This is as good a guess as any as to which object he actually saw. ===== NGC 3909 is a very large scattered group of fifty to sixty pretty bright stars; I'm not sure that it is a real cluster, however. JH took as its position one of two double stars which he saw in it. The same double served as the source of Brian Skiff's position, too. However, ESO's position, on to the east another 38 seconds of time, is more appropriate for the apparent center of group. ESO made its dimensions roughly 20 by 15 arcmin, but I measure it to be 24 x 14 arcmin. Coincidentally close to the center, and shining right through, is ESO 217-G007, a small Sa or Sb galaxy. ===== NGC 3911 is the brighter and following of two galaxies (the other is NGC 3920). It was found by WH whose position is very good. JH also saw it, but because his RA was off, thought it a nova and noted, "Follows III 341 [N3911] on same parallel." The galaxy he thought to be his father's was actually the nova, however. Since JH's RA is about 45 seconds too far east, this, and his note, have confused the identifications of the two objects ever since. Neither d'A nor Dreyer found a nebula at JH's position, of course. In spite of the correct NGC position for N3911, most modern catalogues place the two in numerical order. This necessitates changing the RA's of both. In placing NGC 3911 on the following galaxy, I am giving precedence to the historical order of discovery, attributing to WH the brighter galaxy he actually saw. Since JH was the first to see the fainter preceding object, the number NGC 3920 given by Dreyer to h 996 (JH's nova) necessarily applies to it. This leaves the numbers out of RA order, and also disagrees with the NGC notes about which is preceding and following, but better represents the history in this case. ===== NGC 3912 = NGC 3899, which see. ===== NGC 3915. See NGC 3679. ===== NGC 3920. See NGC 3911. ===== NGC 3922. See NGC 3924. ===== NGC 3924 = NGC 3922. "Both" objects were discovered by William Herschel, but the positions that he gave them were rather discordant. He found N3922 = H III 716 on 9 March 1788, and placed it at 11 48.5, +50 29. N3924 = H II 825 was placed at 11 51.1, +50 33 (1950) by its discovery observation on 8 March 1789. But the next year (17 March 1790), Herschel redetermined its position and found 11 48.9, +50 28. Within Herschel's usual errors, this position is identical with that for III 716. Dreyer realized the identity when he was preparing his edition of William Herschel's Scientific Papers which he collected and published in 1912. He also has a brief note about it in MNRAS 73, 37, 1912. I think the NGC positions come from d'Arrest or Tempel, but haven't chased them down yet. Dreyer also has an intriguing note on the pair in the NGC itself: Tempel apparently saw two nebulae here, though d'Arrest picked up only the brightest. The confusion in the current catalogues comes from both CGCG and MCG which identify both numbers differently. There are many faint galaxies in the area (which is right in the plane of the Local Supercluster, and in the heart of the Ursa Major Cloud), but only one with a surface brightness high enough to be picked up easily at the eyepiece. This is the one that Herschel observed at least three times, and can be confidently called "NGC 3922 = NGC 3924." This is MCG +08-22-017 = UGC 06824. Though CGCG and UGC put the number N3924 on UGC 06849 = MCG +08-22-026, this is a low surface brightness galaxy that Herschel probably would not have noticed while sweeping. (Could this be Tempel's second nebula, though? I'll have to check.) Unfortunately, UGC, RNGC, and RC3 copied CGCG's incorrect identification for UGC 06849. ===== NGC 3927 is probably lost for good. D'A has only one observation of it, but he comments, "Observatio haud dubia, Coelum vero non favebat. Defesso caeteroquin oculo et hebetato." Given that, it's strange that there is nothing at all at his position, nor at any reasonable position resulting from a digit error. Other galaxies nearby that he might have picked up (e.g. N3964, N4008) all have field stars that d'A would have noted. ===== NGC 3928 may well be the faintest galaxy known with well-developed spiral structure. See Sidney van den Bergh's short article and splendid photograph in PASP 92, 409, 1980. Also see NGC 3932. ===== NGC 3932 is a star. D'A has only one observation of it included in his AN 1500 list (where it is No. 125), and in the shorter list (where it is No. 84) that he sent to JH for inclusion in GC (where the NPD is 6 arcsec larger than the NGC NPD). He chose to not include it in his big 2nd monograph; Wolfgang suggests that this was because d'A knew it was a star by that time. In the AN list, d'A describes it as "vF, S. Companion of h. 999 [N3928]," while in the GC, the description reads "vF, v diffic, H.II.740 np." JH is surely responsible for substituting his father's catalogue number for his own, but I suspect that the "v diffic" comes from d'A. I would guess that d'A prepared the two lists at different times from the same observing logs. Perhaps the logs have both "S" and "v diffic" in them. In any event, the faint galaxy chosen by CGCG is not d'A's object -- it is 17 arcmin off his position, and is probably too faint for him to have seen with his 11-inch refractor. RC1 got it right: In the note for NGC 3928, the de Vaucouleurs say "NGC 3932 sf 5.5 arcmin is a star." They also have a reference to Reinmuth (1926, "Die Herschel-Nebel", in Vol. 9 of the Heidelberg publications) who gave the NGC position (d'Arrest's), a diameter of 0.3? x 0.3? arcmin, and the description "* 11.0 in eeF neb?" Reinmuth also classified the object as "(c)" on Wolf's system -- this means a star (or stellar nucleus) surrounded by a corona of faint nebulosity. There is, however, no trace of nebulosity surrounding the star on POSS1 or on POSS2. ===== NGC 3937. See NGC 4055 and IC 2968. ===== NGC 3939 = NGC 3890. This was identified on a plate taken at RGO at Dreyer's request to sort out WH's positions during his sweep 1096 on 2 April 1801; the results were published in MN 71, 509, 1911. Dreyer then labeled III 971 in his 1912 collection of WH's papers as NGC 3890. Curiously, he mentions N3890 in his 1912 MN note giving NGC corrections, but not N3939. See NGC 3752 for more information. ===== NGC 3948 is a star identified precisely by Bigourdan's one measurement in 1886. The RNGC identification with N3954 is wrong. ===== NGC 3949. See NGC 3950. ===== NGC 3950 is probably the faint elliptical galaxy 1.6 arcmin north of NGC 3949. However, LdR's estimated distance from the brighter galaxy on the first night he picked up the companion, and his accordant micrometric measurement three years later in 1875, are clearly 1 arcmin too great. This is all the more puzzling since he gives a table of measurements of six stars surrounding N3949 -- all of those measurements are very good (he notes one as possibly nebulous; it is not). Still, he could have seen the fainter galaxy, and it seems likely that he made a simple error in its distance from the brighter. ===== NGC 3952 = IC 2972, which see. The NGC identification is not in doubt. ===== NGC 3954 is not NGC 3948, which see. ===== NGC 3955. See IC 2970. ===== NGC 3957 = IC 2965, which see. ===== NGC 3964. See NGC 3927. ===== NGC 3966 = NGC 3986. d'A's position (from a single observation) is one of the few verifiably bad ones in his list. His description fits NGC 3986 perfectly, and he notes the unresolved 12th magnitude double just southwest exactly in its place relative to the galaxy. Finally, he comments, "Found while looking for [N3986]; this is either a nova, or my RA is inexplicably erroneous." His RA is 1m 30s off, and his declination is 10 arcmin off, too. The galaxy chosen by Max Wolf as N3966 is actually IC 2981 (which see as it has problems of its own). Wolf's note about N3966 in his 8th list was copied into the IC2 notes by Dreyer, apparently during its final stages of preparation since Dreyer did not include any of the 8th list objects in the IC itself. ===== NGC 3971 = NGC 3984, which see. ===== NGC 3975 may possibly also be IC 3166, which see. ===== NGC 3977 = NGC 3980, which see. ===== NGC 3978 may possibly also be IC 3180. See IC 3166 for the story. ===== NGC 3980 = NGC 3977. Swift's position is only an arcminute following N3977, there is nothing there, and the double star he notes is 3 arcmin following the galaxy. The identity is sure. ===== NGC 3984 is almost certainly the same object as NGC 3971. John Herschel found N3984 during Sweep 342, and described it as "eF, R, bM, 25 arcsec." He adds an interesting note (aluded to in the IC2 Notes by Dreyer): "Supposed at the time to be II.724 [NGC 3971], but on reducing the obs, it differs 1 min in RA and 1 deg in PD, BOTH which can hardly be mistakes" (Sir John's emphasis). Yet the only reasonable solution is to say that both ARE mistakes. JH found N3971 in Sweep 67, describing it "pB, R, bM. An exact obs." The difference in estimated brightness is significant, but many of JH's multiply-observed objects have the same wide range of description. Otherwise, however, the descriptions for these two objects are the same. Also, the position that he gives for N3971 is (within his usual statistical errors) 1 deg north, and 1 min preceding N3984, just as he noted. Since each nebula was noted in only one sweep, and since there are only very faint stars in the vicinity of his position for N3984, I am going to adopt the identity. ===== NGC 3986 = NGC 3966, which see. ===== NGC 3993 is not H III 324. WH's object is, instead, NGC 3997, which see. ===== NGC 3996 is not NGC 4019, which see. ===== NGC 3997 is the second brightest galaxy in a group of three found by WH in 1785. JH found it again 40 years later during his northern sweeps from Slough, and LdR and his observers noted over a dozen companions in the area. All these are in NGC, and Dreyer has the numbers pretty well sorted out (though NGC 4009, which see, is a star; and NGC 4007, which also see -- due to a 2 deg error in GC or in CH's reduction -- is identical to NGC 4005 also seen by Otto Struve at St. Petersberg). However, Dreyer, in his 1912 Scientific Papers of WH, has put the number H III 324 on NGC 3993, presumably because it is the closest galaxy northeast of H III 323 (= N3987). WH says only, "Suspected another nf, eF, 5 or 6 arcmin dist, pretty sure." Though his estimated distance falls directly between N3993 and N3997, the latter galaxy is brighter, larger, and (in the central regions at least) has a higher surface brightness. So, I'm pretty sure that it is the one seen by WH. As I noted above, it was also seen by JH -- it is, in fact, the only one of the group seen by him. He rather confused the issue a bit by listing it as "III 323" in his 1833 catalogue. ===== NGC 4004 = NGC 4004A. The secondary designation comes from Holmberg's 1937 monograph and catalogue of multiple galaxies. He always called the brightest galaxy of a multiplet "a", the second "b", and so on. In this case, "NGC 4004B" is IC 2982 (which see). ===== NGC 4005 = NGC 4007, which see. ===== NGC 4006 is not IC 2983, which see. ===== NGC 4007 = NGC 4005. First found by WH in 1785, this object was recovered by LdR and his observers, and by Otto Struve. Dreyer caught the identity when he revisited the area during preparation of WH's Scientific Papers. In GC, JH has the galaxy two degrees too far south, either because of a transcription error by him or a reduction error by CH. See NGC 3997 for more on this group. ===== NGC 4008. See NGC 3927. ===== NGC 4009 is a star identified exactly by LdR's micrometric measurements referred to a brighter star. It is often taken as the fainter galaxy 3.5 arcmin further northeast, but the measurements leave no doubt as to its correct identity. ===== NGC 4014 = NGC 4028, which see. ===== NGC 4019 = IC 755. Though JH's position is 2 min 16 sec and 6 arcmin off the true position of I755, the IC object is the only galaxy in the area to have a 9th magnitude star 5 arcmin southeast, matching JH's note. Other possibilities include NGC 3996 (but seen in the same sweep as N4019), NGC 4037 (this has an 8th magnitude star following by 6-7 arcmin, but the star is a bit north, not south), and CGCG 069-010 (but that has a pretty low surface brightness and no bright star near). There is nothing at JH's position, so I'm pretty sure that I755 is the correct object. Malcolm notes, however, that there is a 9th magnitude star southeast of JH's (empty) position. This throws a little doubt on the I755 identity, but requires that JH's object be a comet. This is a possibility, but I think that the equality with I755 is more likely. ===== NGC 4028 = NGC 4014, in spite of what JH had to say in a note in GC (repeated by Dreyer in the NGC Notes). This is one of WH's early discoveries (30 Dec 1783). As with other objects found during the fall and winter of 1783-1784, the position is not very good. However, WH's full record is published by Dreyer in the 1912 Scientific Papers. There, we find the note, "... It forms an isosceles triangle with two small stars {Dreyer's note:} [by a diagram, these are about 6 arcmin sp.]. ..." The stars precede N4014 by the correct amount, so I am pretty sure that it is WH's nebula. This requires WH to have made two 2 min errors in his RA offsets from two different stars on two different nights. While it is highly unlikely that he would make two such errors leading to much the same position -- this is what prompted JH's comment -- this is apparently exactly what happened. The configuration on the sky is too outstanding to be mistaken. ===== NGC 4032 is probably not NGC 4042, which see. Also see NGC 4055. ===== NGC 4037. See NGC 4019. ===== NGC 4042 is Marth 227, found the same night in March 1865 as N4056 (which see) and N4060. If the offsets (about 10 seconds of time, and 1 arcmin) suggested for those other two galaxies are even roughly correct, then N4042 can be tentatively identified with a galaxy in GSC at 12 00 13.2 +20 26 31. The declination offset would be the same as for the other objects, but the RA offset would be considerably larger at 26 seconds. Still, there are no other galaxies even remotely close to Marth's position that would match his description. Another possibility is that N4042 is a star somewhere in the area. RC1 raises the possiblility that it is identical to NGC 4032, but that would lead to an error of over 2 minutes of time and 5 arcmin, making it unique amoung Marth's objects of that night. In the end, I'm not sure what Marth really saw, but the galaxy 26 seconds off his position seems the best choice. ===== NGC 4052. There is nothing at JH's place, but 1 minute of time west is a cluster, about 9 arcmin by 9 arcmin, that fits his description ("Cluster VII class; loose and scattered, but pretty rich."). I have no doubt that this is his intended object. ===== NGC 4055 = NGC 4061, NGC 4057 = NGC 4065, and NGC 4059 = NGC 4070. John Herschel found these three nebulae during his Sweep 423 on 29 April 1832. They have not been positively identified in any published catalogue since, though Reinmuth and PGC have made suggestions. Here is the story. Steve Gottlieb started the case by noting that Reinmuth's identifications were unlikely. Bob Erdmann followed up with the suggestion that these might be identical to some of the galaxies in the NGC 4065 group 0.8 deg south. Then, Brent Archinal suggested a check of the other objects seen by Herschel in the same sweep. Here is what is in his 1833 catalog credited to Sweep 423 (there may be one or two others lurking in the list, but I haven't found them in two reasonably careful searches): NGC h RA (1830) NPD Desc 3937 1003 11 43 56 68 25.1 vF, S, R 4032 1049 11 51 49 68 58.2 pB, R, gbM, 40" [N.B. Seen in 5 other sweeps where the brightness ranges from "B" to "eF"; the positions agree] 4055 1062 11 55 00: 68+- pB 4057 1063 11 55 04: 68+- pB 4059 1064 11 55 08: 68+- pB. On merid[ian] with two more [I presume the other two are N4055 and N4057] 4066 1068 11 55 26 68 41.9 No description [Seen in 3 other sweeps; the positions agree. Those descriptions are "Not vF. Another seen", "pB", and "The third of 5"] 4095 1079 11 57 13 68 28.1 eF [seen in one other sweep; position agrees, but no description] 4098 1082 11 57 22 68 25.5 No description [two other sweeps: positions agree; "vF, R, bM" and "No description"] Looking at this table, I was struck by a couple of things. First, the north polar distances of the three questionable objects have been assigned the same number of degrees as the other five objects. This suggests to me that the minutes of NPD should be similar to the others -- say 68 30 to 68 50 -- since Herschel's sweeps were pretty limited in declination. This would make the NPD's roughly equivalent to the other bright objects in the core of the NGC 4065 group where the NPD's range from 68 38 to 68 53. Second, the descriptions suggest that the objects are not faint, and that they are aligned pretty closely along the same meridian of RA. The NGC 4065 group has four bright objects: N4061, N4065, N4066, and N4070. Since Sir John saw N4066 during the sweep in question, this leaves N4061, N4065, and N4070 as the possible candidates. Interestingly, his more exact positions for N4055, 57, and 59 given in GC (from "a most careful consideration of all the observations and records in the sweeping books" [note in GC], and copied into NGC by Dreyer) are roughly coincident with these three galaxies if a systematic offset of about -0.88 degrees in Dec and +20 seconds in RA is applied. Putting all this together, Occam's Razor (the simplest hypothesis that fits the facts) suggests that NGC 4055 = NGC 4061 NGC 4057 = NGC 4065 NGC 4059 = NGC 4070 I'm not sure about this, of course. But this is certainly a reasonable solution to the problem. There is more discussion of the identities in the group under NGC 4056 and NGC 4069. ===== NGC 4056 and NGC 4060. Albert Marth found these two objects in the area of the N4065 group during his Malta observations of March 1865 with William Lassell's 48-inch reflector (these are m229 = N4056 and m230 = N4060; their data are transcribed correctly into NGC). These do not have good positions (neither was "verified" by Marth), and the descriptions are vague enough to make identifications unsure. One possibility is N4060 = RN4056; Marth's position is close to that galaxy. However, that leaves the question of N4056. Marth's position is near a very faint galaxy that I doubt could be dug out visually even with the 48-inch -- is N4056 perhaps the star preceding Marth's position by about two arcmin? Another possibility is that N4060 = RN4069 and N4056 = RN4056; this would require a systematic offset of about 10 sec in RA and 1 min in dec for Marth's positions. (Another object, m227 = N4042, which see, found by him the same night, could then be identified with a faint galaxy in the GSC with the same declination offset, but would require an RA offset of 26 seconds.) Even with the offsets, however, the positions would not be good matches for the positions of the galaxies in the group. Finally, there is the RNGC "brute force" solution: ignore the positions and simply assign the numbers to the two relatively bright galaxies in the area that do not have other NGC numbers. If we accept this idea, N4060 is at least north-following N4056, though the difference in RA is about one-third of the difference given by Marth. Still, this could be the correct interpretation, so we'll go with it for the time being. See NGC 4069 for more on this confused field. ===== NGC 4057 = NGC 4065. See NGC 4055. ===== NGC 4059 = NGC 4070. See NGC 4055. ===== NGC 4060. See NGC 4042, NGC 4056, and NGC 4069. ===== NGC 4061. See NGC 4055 and NGC 4069. ===== NGC 4065 = NGC 4057. See NGC 4055 and NGC 4069. ===== NGC 4066. See NGC 4055 and NGC 4069. ===== NGC 4067. See NGC 4368. ===== NGC 4068 = IC 757, which see. Bigourdan misidentified a star as NGC 4068 on two nights, apparently misled by the NGC description "stellar." This led him to rediscover the galaxy and claim it as a "nova." WH's own description "A pS star involved in nebulosity of no great extent; the star does not seem to belong to it" matches the galaxy and its brightest superposed star very well. I suspect that JH condensed the description while preparing the GC. See IC 757 for more. ===== NGC 4069. This is one of the galaxies found by John Herschel during the problematic Sweep 423 of 29 April 1832 (see NGC 4055 for a list of the nebulae found during the sweep). Unfortunately, Herschel saw it only during that one sweep, so its position is not well-determined. Also, it is in the midst of a group of nebulae found by William Herschel, and later reobserved by Heinrich d'Arrest. Making reasonable assumptions about the six objects found by Sir William (he measured positions only for the northern three of those he saw, saying only that the other three were 10-12 arcmin south) leads to the conclusion that d'Arrest got the same six. NGC 4069 (= h1070) is not among them, in spite of the identity with H III 392 given in NGC. The three measured by Herschel are N4066, N4070, and N4074; and his other three to the south must be N4061, N4065, and N4076. These are the six brightest objects in the group. There are four other NGC objects scattered through the group. Unfortunately, only one can be pinned down with any certainty. That one is NGC 4072, discovered by Ralph Copeland with Lord Rosse's Leviathan. His description (dated 3 April 1872) also makes it clear that he saw the fainter galaxy two minutes north-following N4076. The confusion in the positions, though, led Dreyer to not assign an NGC number to this galaxy. In any case, N4069 is one of the remaining three (the other two are N4056 and N4060, found by Marth; see the discussion of these). RNGC makes N4069 the faint galaxy just north-preceding a star (both are in GSC), but the nearby RN4060 is considerably brighter. Herschel's description, however, "vF, R, 4th of 5; has another on same meridian, north" doesn't support the identity with RN4060. There is the possibility, however, that the star just south-following RN4069 was "blended" with the galaxy so that the two objects together would appear as a single brighter nebula. This would save the description of "another on the same meridian, north," and would be relatively close to Sir John's position. Lacking any better hypothesis at the moment, we'll adopt the RNGC identification. ===== NGC 4070 = NGC 4059. See NGC 4055 and NGC 4069. ===== NGC 4072. See NGC 4069. ===== NGC 4074. See NGC 4069. ===== NGC 4076. See NGC 4069. ===== NGC 4077 is also NGC 4140. See NGC 4139 for more. ===== NGC 4078 = NGC 4107, which see. ===== NGC 4082. See NGC 4107. ===== NGC 4083. See NGC 4107. ===== NGC 4086. See NGC 4090 and IC 759. ===== NGC 4090 is not IC 2997 (which see). Both were seen on the same night by Bigourdan, though he included only his observations for I2997 in his big table. The observations for N4090 are in his appendix of complementary observations. Another curiosity with this object is its NGC right ascension from d'Arrest's observation. D'A found both this and NGC 4086 on the same night, and mentions this object in his note for N4086. However, while his RA for N4086 is about right, he puts this object about 10 seconds of time following its true position 1.5 seconds preceding N4086. Since both are visible in the same eyepiece field, I suspect that this is a simple digit error somewhere in d'A's reduction. ===== NGC 4092, not NGC 4093, is almost certainly H III 382. WH saw three galaxies in this group, most plausibly the brightest three. So, Dreyer's supposition that the first of the three is N4093 is probably wrong, just as JH's idea that III 382 is NGC 4095 (note, too, that JH has a misprint in his list making his father's object "II 382"). N4092 is a magnitude brighter and considerably larger than N4093, so is probably WH's object. His other two are NGC 4095 and NGC 4098 = NGC 4099, both of which see. ===== NGC 4093 is probably not H III 382. See NGC 4092 for more. ===== NGC 4095. The RC3 position is from MCG. GSC has 12 03 21.05 +20 51 03.6 (1950) for this galaxy. The relatively small difference in position normally wouldn't matter to the identification, but the galaxy is in a fairly compact group with five other NGC objects. Four of the six galaxies are in RC3, and as far as I can tell with a quick check of MCG, UGC, and CGCG, the data for each have been assigned correctly. This is also the second of the three objects that WH found (III 383). The first is NGC 4092 (which see), and the third is NGC 4098 = NGC 4099 (also which see). Dreyer reassigned WH's numbers in the 1912 Scientific Papers, getting this one and III 384 correct. Also see NGC 4055. ===== NGC 4098 = NGC 4099, which see. Also see NGC 4055. ===== NGC 4099 = NGC 4098. WH found three nebulae in this group. It's reasonable to suppose that he saw the three brightest (two of these were seen by JH, and the others were found by d'A); these are NGC 4092, 4095, and 4098. As Dreyer realized in 1912, this would make the number 4099 = GC 2714 irrelevant as it was added (by JH) explicitly for H III 384, the third of his father's three. On the DSS image, this looks like an interacting double galaxy (it may be a triple -- there is a broad plume extending on to the southeast that may be a third component). The two are well merged, so the early observers would not have seen them as separate objects. So that won't save the extra NGC number (nor IC 2998, which see). ===== NGC 4107 = NGC 4078 with a 2 minute error in d'A's RA. The object is positively identified by the "star 10-11 30.2 seconds following, 1 arcmin south." Just north of this star is a line of three faint galaxies, two (N4082 and N4083) seen by Marth with William Lassel's 48-inch reflector, the third found by Frost on a Harvard plate. All are faint enough that d'A could not have seen them with his 11-inch refractor. There is a curious footnote to this: Burnham claims to have seen the nebula in 1891 with the Lick 36-inch, and also says that the star is north-preceding, not south-following as d'A has it. Since I haven't yet seen Burnham's notes, I can't say anything about this except to speculate that Burnham saw a different object. We can also speculate that he would have noticed the RA error had he picked up N4078. ----- Since I wrote that previous paragraph, Wolfgang has kindly sent me a copy of Burnham's note which appears in Publ. Lick Obs. 2, 163, 1894 (his discoveries of IC 258 and IC 259, which see, are at the end of this paper). It reads in full: No. 4107 R.A. 11 59 35 Decl. +11 23 Not planetary, but it is brighter in the middle, and extended in the direction of 115 deg. In Dreyer, it is described as having a star 10-11m south following. There is nothing in that place, but there is a star of that magnitude north preceding. Wolfgang points out that there is a fainter star very near to the west of the galaxy. Since Burnham does not mention a distance to his star, and since d'A's star is a considerable distance away, it's possible that Burnham did not notice d'A's star. It is also possible that he simply got his directions confused. Whatever happened, it's clear that Burnham got the right galaxy -- his position angle is accurate for NGC 4107. ===== NGC 4108. See NGC 4512. ===== NGC 4113 = NGC 4122. JH has only one observation of N4113, calling it only "eF." His position is exactly 1 degree north of N4122, and his brief description is appropriate. ===== NGC 4115 is perhaps the 14th magnitude star near JH's position. There are no nebulae nearby, or at digit errors from his nominal position, that he could have picked up while sweeping. He also notes it as "A suspected nebula, extremely faint" which the star would have been were it seen on a less than perfect night. ===== NGC 4119 = IC 3011 (which see) is also probably NGC 4124 as suggested by Dreyer in WH's Scientific Papers. WH's final position is just 50 arcmin south of N4124, and there are no other bright galaxies nearby that he might have picked up. It is worth noting, too, that this is one of his early discoveries (18 Jan 1784). Many other of his nebulae and clusters found during the winter of 1783-84 (his first season of sweeping) have relatively poor positions (see e.g. NGC 4153 and NGC 6533). Dreyer notes that N4124 already has two certain numbers in WH's lists, I 33 and II 60. The positions for these observations are better, but are still enough different -- along with the differing descriptions "B, L, ..." and "F, S" -- that WH listed them separately. ===== NGC 4122 = NGC 4113, which see. ===== NGC 4124 = NGC 4119 = IC 3011, both of which see. ===== NGC 4139 = IC 2989. The RA's of this and its companion NGC 4140 are 5 minutes of time too large. When corrected by this amount, the positions agree closely with those for IC 2989 and NGC 4077, respectively. The descriptions clinch the identities, and RC3 is correct. ===== NGC 4140 = NGC 4077. See NGC 4139. ===== NGC 4147. See NGC 4153. ===== NGC 4149 = NGC 4154. The two NGC numbers are due to WH having swept this galaxy up twice in succesive years, 1789 and 1790. JH has only one observation of it with no description which he put on his father's 1789 observation. Dreyer noted that Bigourdan did not find NGC 4154 (the 1790 observation), but WH's position for this is actually closer to the galaxy than his position for N4149 which Bigourdan did observe. In any event, there is no doubt that the two numbers apply to the same galaxy. Steve Gottlieb (who called my attention to this) and Wolfgang Steinicke were apparently the first to notice the identity. Though I have the correct position for each object, they are just far enough apart in my working table (separated by many good positions for NGC 4151) that I did not see the identity. Good catch, guys! ===== NGC 4152. See IC 765. ===== NGC 4153 is probably NGC 4147. This was found by WH on 15 Feb 1784, only two months after he started observing with his first "20-feet" telescope. He put the nebula 1m 30s preceding, 2d 11m south of 5 Comae. This gives 12 08.1 +18 38 (1950) for the nebula. Herschel described it as "B, pL, lE, bM, m[ilky]." It has not been seen since at this position. The closest reasonable object that might be the missing nebula is another early discovery of WH's, NGC 4147 = H I 19, the bright globular northwest of the Virgo Cluster. Herschel found this just a month after N4153 (14 March 1784), and placed it at 10m 30s preceding, 0d 46m north of 11 Comae. This becomes 12 07.7, +18 50 (1950), in pretty good agreement with modern positions for the cluster. WH's description is very much the same as that for N4153: "vB, pL, gbM." At the time WH found N4153, he was still improving his method of determining positions. So, I suspect that the February observation, earlier on the "learning curve," actually refers to NGC 4147. I also recall a Sky and Telescope article on this mystery object. It appeared many years ago, perhaps in the late 50s or early 60s. Someone whose S&T's are not buried in the storeroom might want to dig it out. It is not a "Deep Sky Wonders" article, since Walter Scott Houston's article -- at least as printed in the book edited by Stephen James O'Meara -- that mentions N4153 calls it a "true faint external galaxy ... about 13' south and about 8' east of NGC 4147." The declination would be close to WH's, but the RA is well off. And there is nothing in this position, either. ===== NGC 4154 = NGC 4149, which see. ===== NGC 4160. Bigourdan has two accordant observations of this object on 27 May 1886 which place it 12.87 seconds east and 1 arcmin 24.8 arcsec north of "AG Bonn 8386" = SAO 044068. However, there is nothing there. A quick glance at the POSS1 shows another star about 35 seconds following and 40 arcsec north with a faint double star north following. The DSS gives the position of the double as 12 09 31.0, +44 00 49. Assuming that this is Bigourdan's object, and that he misidentified his comparison star, I reduced his observation. The resulting position is 12 09 41.0, +44 00 59. The 10 second and 10 arcsec differences are striking, but are difficult to understand given that Bigourdan read his micrometer in terms of position angle and distance and later reduced them to RA and Dec offsets. Since there is still nothing at Bigourdan's place (assuming the mistaken identity for the comparison star), I'm tempted to assume some kind of error in his observation leading to the digit errors. But so far, I've not been able to find it. ===== NGC 4163 = NGC 4167, which see. ===== NGC 4164 and 4165. There is no doubt concerning the identifications of these two galaxies, yet UGC missed the NGC number for N4164. This is probably just an oversight. However, one comment: Tempel expresses some surprise that d'Arrest should have missed N4164; Tempel seems to think that the two galaxies are nearly equal in brightness. However, N4164 is a full magnitude fainter, and much smaller than N4165. There is a 15th magnitude star about 30 arcsec south-following that may have provided the illusion of a brighter nebula in Tempel's relatively small 11-inch refractor. Still, I'm not at all surprised that d'Arrest picked up N4165 alone. N4165 itself is identical to IC 3035, which is from Schwassmann's list of photographically discovered nebulae in the Virgo Cluster. There can be no doubt about this as Schwassmann included other NGC objects, and his position falls much closer to N4165 than to the tiny companion just north-preceding. Nilson realized this, too, and corrected the mistaken entry in CGCG where the north-preceding galaxy is called I3035. Since Schwassmann was working on a plate taken with a telescope of 6-inches aperture, it's doubtful that the fainter galaxy is on the plate at all (the plate, by the way, has been lost. Wayne Johnson requested a print of it from Heidelberg along with the other prints of the discovery plates for many of Wolf's IC objects, but Schwassmann's plate could not be found). ===== NGC 4165. See NGC 4164. ===== NGC 4167 = NGC 4163. JH first suggested the identity -- it is clinched by the existence of the bright double star (SAO 62887/8) 10 arcmin southwest of the galaxy. JH's position is exactly 20 arcmin off. ===== NGC 4169. See NGC 4170. ===== NGC 4170 and 4171. Found by d'Arrest near the group of four galaxies NGC 4169, 4173, 4174, and 4175, these two objects are probably stars picked up on a night of below-average seeing. D'A's entire observation (translated to colloquial English by a Latin teacher, and relayed courtesy of Steven Dick and Brent Archinal at USNO) reads in full: "In addition, I think I see two other nebulae very close to this one [NGC 4169]; a clearer sky would help." His note for the night (10 May 1864) reads: "Wind; not perfectly clear." The approximate positions in the NGC apparently come from Dreyer. And that is the extent of the original "data." There are no other nebulae near the quartet found by the Herschels. Given d'A's scanty observation, we can safely conclude that these two objects do not exist. An interesting side note: Yann Pothier brought these objects back to my attention. His mother, also fluent in Latin, commented -- based on the sentence describing these nebulae -- that d'A's Latin was not very good. Here is the complete sentence for those of you who would be able to read my PhD diploma: "Praeterea visus sum mihi videre duas alias nebulas huic valde vicinas, quae Astronomis, Coelo adjutis sereniore, relinquuntur." ===== NGC 4171. See NGC 4170. ===== NGC 4173. See NGC 4170. ===== NGC 4174. See NGC 4170. ===== NGC 4175. See NGC 4170. ===== NGC 4180 is perhaps NGC 4182, which see. ===== NGC 4182 may be NGC 4180, or it may simply be a star at Peters's position. That position is 3 degrees south and 17 seconds following NGC 4180. Arguing for the identity is his observation of NGC 4191. Both it and NGC 4180 are about 13th magnitude, and close enough together on the sky that it is difficult to understand how an observer could see one but miss the other. On the other hand, Peters's position for NGC 4191 is only 4 seconds following the true position -- his measured separation for the objects (assuming only a 3 deg error in declination) does not match their separation on the sky. And the star at his quoted position is faint enough that it could have been mistaken for a nebula. In the end, we would need to re-examine Peters's charts to find the objects that he thought were nebulae. Until then, I slightly favor the NGC 4182 = NGC 4180 idea, though not by much. ===== NGC 4184 is a group of faint stars just where JH says it is. The object was rediscovered over a century later by Ruprecht (it is his number 102), but the NGC number was not attached. Thus, the "non-existent" status in RNGC. ===== NGC 4185 may also be NGC 4209, which see. ===== NGC 4186. Tempel mentions this object in two of his papers (AN 2212 and AN 2439). In the earlier paper, the offset from M98 (= N4192 = GC2786) is given as -10s and -10', leading to a position listed as 12 06 15 +15 32 (1855) [12 06 30 +15 30 (1860)] which is 10s off the NGC place (12 06 20 +15 31). However, the later paper lists the offset as +20s, -9.5m which gives 12 07 00 +15 31 (1860). This position agrees with that from Zwicky for an Sa galaxy with mp = 14.9; this was also earlier mentioned by Carlson (1940). The mistake seems to have been Dreyer's: he applied the right ascension offset (from Tempel's later paper) with the wrong sign. Carlson and RC2 are correct; RNGC, UGC, and VCC are incorrect. ===== NGC 4189 = IC 3050, which see. ===== NGC 4191. See NGC 4182. ===== NGC 4192. See NGC 4186. ===== NGC 4193 = IC 3051. See IC 3050. ===== NGC 4198 = IC 778, which see. ===== NGC 4202. Todd's published article has a sketch of the field of this galaxy that unambiguously identifies it with UGC 7337. The RC3 is correct; RNGC is not. ===== NGC 4206 = IC 3064. See IC 3050. ===== NGC 4208 = NGC 4212. This one requires a coincidence of errors by both WH and JH. Though both nebulae were seen by WH in a single sweep, Dreyer has shown (in the Scientific Papers) that the objects could be identical if WH reset his telescope after fixing on a star. In his NGC note, Dreyer suggests that JH made a simple digit error in the RA of h1142 = N4208 -- it was seen only once in a different sweep than h1144 = N4212 (which has four accordant observations). This placed h1142 close enough to H II 107 that JH assumed the identity. Though remarkable, such a coincidence is almost sure to happen at least once in the crowded area of the Supergalactic equator. Since there are plausible explanations for both errors, I'm willing to accept Dreyer's identity of the "two" nebulae. ===== NGC 4209 may be NGC 4185. Or it may be a star about 2 arcmin south-southwest of WH's position. The problem with equating N4209 and N4185 (which is about 2 minutes west of N4209) is that WH found them both during the same sweep. Dreyer's note in the Scientific Papers tells us that WH's position of N4209 was recorded to the nearest minute of time only, so may be "doubtful" as it then rests on WH's note that it follows N4196 by 1 minute 18 seconds. Dreyer has also shown us (see NGC 4208) that WH, at least once, probably unknowingly observed the same galaxy twice in the same sweep. Could this have happened here? Wolfgang Steinicke has chosen the star noted above as being N4209. This is certainly possible, too, but WH's description "F, pS" does not give us very much to go on. So, we are left with questions and only suggestions of answers. ===== NGC 4210. See NGC 4512. ===== NGC 4212 = NGC 4208, which see. ===== NGC 4214 = NGC 4228, which see. ===== NGC 4221. See NGC 4512. ===== NGC 4222 is not IC 3087, which see. ===== NGC 4223 = IC 3102 and NGC 4241 = IC 3115. There are several curious things going on here, the least of which are the equalities with the IC numbers! Here are two galaxies, both seen by both Herschels, yet Dreyer has all but insisted on dropping the NGC number 4223. I'm not really in favor of this at the end of the story -- but we need the story first. WH found the brightest (H II 137) of the two galaxies on 13 April 1784, placing it "f 11 Virginis 7 min 18 sec, 0 deg 55 arcmin north." As Dreyer noted, these offsets reduce to 12 15 13, +06 58.6 (B1950). WH's second observation, from 28 Dec 1784, reduces to 12 14 49, +07 00.1, which is close to the actual position of the brighter galaxy of the pair. That these observations refer to the same nebula is obvious from WH's note about III 480 (seen only on the second night): "L, vF, would not have been seen if it had not been for the preceding [II 137]." WH's position for the fainter object is also very close to the true position, too. JH also has two observations of the brighter galaxy -- his positions are accordant with each other, and with his father's second position. However -- and here is where the confusion sets in -- he calls this brighter galaxy III 480. On his second sweep, he also has an observation of an object which he calls II 137, but of it he says, "pB, R, RA estimated from III 480, which it precedes on the same parallel." All that is true. But the position he gives for this brighter object is a minute of time earlier than it should be -- there is no nebula there. Somehow, JH has got his absolute positions about a minute of time west of the true positions. JH, of course, used his own positions in GC, and Dreyer copied them into the NGC noting that d'A never saw the preceding of the pair. However, while working on the Scientific Papers, Dreyer looked again at the problem, this time finding that H III 480 is = IC 3115, and that II 137 = NGC 4241 (apparently not noticing that N4241 would also be = IC 3102). This leaves the number 4223 without a galaxy -- yet WH's observations are very clear that his II 137 applies to the brighter, western object. This would be N4223. This makes the fainter eastern object III 480 = N4241. All this is in accordance with the numbers in the GC and the NGC itself. The only incorrect data are the RA's which are about a minute of time (N4223) and 30 seconds (N4241) too far west. This leads me to suggest that the simplest solution is to adopt WH's positions, descriptions, and numbers. The only problem is that the number N4241 has been applied to the brighter galaxy for so long that confusion will undoubtedly result. My feeling is, "So be it." The IC numbers are unambiguous as Schwassmann's positions are very good. The question of why he did not assign the NGC numbers is pretty clear from the mess above. I would have thought, however, that either he or Dreyer would have caught the equality of the positions for I3102 and N4241 (as published in NGC); apparently, neither checked carefully enough, perhaps thrown off by the RA problems. An addendum: The mess with these two NGC numbers may not be the reason that Schwassmann did not assign them in his list -- he may simply have missed them. There are at least two other NGC/IC equalities in his list: NGC 4235 = IC 3098, and NGC 4246 = IC 3113. There are no big problems with the NGC positions in these cases, yet he has not put the NGC numbers into his list. So, the galaxies also went into the IC. See the IC numbers for a bit more discussion. ===== NGC 4228 = NGC 4214. The equality was first implied by d'A, and later taken up at Lick, by Reinmuth, Carlson, and in RC1 and RNGC. The problem is simply an error of 1 minute of time in JH's position for the galaxy the first time he saw it (Sweep 72). He got it right the second time (Sweep 331). ===== NGC 4230 was misidentified in ESO and by Brian Skiff (and perhaps by others as well). Their positions point at an apparently real cluster roughly 12 arcmin southeast of JH's position. There is a bright star, HD 106826, superposed on the cluster just northwest of the core, a star that JH surely would not have called "12th magnitude" as he did the star near the center of his object. Brian took the position of the HD star as that of the cluster, while Andris Lauberts measure the position of the core itself. JH' object is a much more scattered grouping and may not be a real cluster. It is centered about an arcminute northeast of a 12th magnitude star which JH measured and took as the position of his cluster. I make the object 7 arcmin by 5 arcmin in diameter on the DSS cutout, in good agreement with JH's estimate of 6 arcmin. ===== NGC 4235 = IC 3098, which see. Also see NGC 4223 = IC 3102. ===== NGC 4236. While there is no question about the identification of this large, low surface brightness galaxy, its accurate position is not easily determined. There is no nucleus visible at any wavelength, so the published positions are all either estimates, or refer to various other features within the galaxy. The position that I've adopted is an estimated center of the outer isophotes visible on the POSS I prints. Because the galaxy is reasonably symmetrical -- unlike many other late-type galaxies which also have no nucleus -- this position pretty closely corresponds to the center of the bar, and is within a few arcsec of a superposed star. ===== NGC 4241 = IC 3115. See NGC 4223 = IC 3102. ===== NGC 4246 = IC 3113 (which also see). In a note in the NGC, Dreyer defends the use of the declination from a Harvard observation by G. M. Searle rather than from WH's single observation. As it happens, Searle is correct. The RA is only five seconds out, so the identity with IC 3113 is solid. Since there are other NGC objects in the area that Schwassmann did not identify as such (see e.g. NGC 4223 = IC 3102), I am beginning to think that he had a reason to omit the numbers from his table. Perhaps the confusion explained in the note about N4223 above had something to do with it. I'll have to dig into Schwassmann's text a bit to see if anything obvious falls out. ===== NGC 4279. See NGC 4280. ===== NGC 4280 may be the short line of three stars between N4279 and N4285. Swift has it as the "2nd of 3," but there are only two galaxies here. Howe calls them N4280 and N4285, but modern catalogs (including ESGC) have made them the two outer objects of the triple Swift claimed to have seen. Unfortunately, he has no notes about stars in the area, so we are left only with his poor positions and inconsistent descriptions of brightness (he calls the last of the three the brightest; Howe noted correctly that it is actually fainter than the preceding galaxy). There are also no systematic offsets in the positions of the other galaxies he found the same night (see also N6059), so we can't recover the missing nebula that way. So, the only faintly reasonable explanation is that Swift's middle "nebula" is the line of stars, but this is little more than a guess. ===== NGC 4284 may also be IC 3166, which see. ===== NGC 4285. See NGC 4280. ===== NGC 4286 = IC 3181, which see. ===== NGC 4290 may also be IC 3180. See IC 3166 for the story. ===== NGC 4294. See NGC 4368. ===== NGC 4296. See NGC 4297. ===== NGC 4297. Though noted as not found by d'A and Reinmuth, this galaxy is indeed where WH found it: "... close by ..." N4296. It is actually north, and just a bit preceding the larger, brighter galaxy. It is very faint, though, and very small, so I'm not surprised that d'A did not see it. It probably appears stellar on the Bruce plates that Reinmuth examined. ===== NGC 4305. The position given for this by Schwassmann in his list of Virgo Cluster galaxies is about an arcmin off to the south of the true position. Since Schwassmann was a pioneer in the measurement of accurate positions on photographic plates, this -- and a few other buggy numbers in his list -- are a bit of a puzzle. They most likely come from numerical errors in the reduction of the measured rectangular coordinates to RA and Dec. In our present age of electronic computers, we often forget that the calculations at the turn of the century were all done by hand. Accidental errors were thus more likely. My guess is that this is one. See also NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4306. See NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4310 = NGC 4338, which see. Also see NGC 4311 and NGC 4317. ===== NGC 4311. JH has only one observation of this, calling it "Faint; the south-following of two." The "north-preceding" of the two is N4310 which JH called "Very bright." There is only one galaxy here, N4310, and that was also seen by WH, as well as by JH during the sweep previous to the one during which he saw two objects in this place. It is possible that JH misidentified another pair -- but there is no other pair near his place, nor at any reasonable digit error from his place. In addition, his measured position for N4311 is less than 20 arcsec from the single galaxy here. This is would be a remarkable coincidence if the position actually applies to another object. So, we are confronted with another lost NGC object. ===== NGC 4313. See NGC 4368. ===== NGC 4314. See NGC 4317. ===== NGC 4315 may be one of the two 13th magnitude stars south of NGC 4316. Tempel mentioned the object in his descriptive note that accompanies his micrometric position for NGC 4316 in his fifth paper including new nebulae. In that list, he places N4315 at 2 seconds preceding and 1.5 arcmin south of NGC 4316 -- there isn't anything there. The brighter star is at the required declination offset, but its RA is about 3 seconds larger than N4316's. This would require that Tempel made a mistake in the sign of his RA offset. This isn't unknown -- see NGC 4186 for another example. The fainter star is another candidate. The RA offset is in the right direction (it is 3 seconds preceding the RA of the galaxy), however, it is nearly 3 arcmin south of N4316, not 1.5 as Tempel made it. So, I feel that this is less likely to be his object (though it is the one that I chose the first time I went over the field without Tempel's paper at hand). In either case, Tempel has mistaken other stars near other galaxies as nebulous (see e.g. N577, N4322, N4327, and N4768/9), so having one near N4316 is no surprise. ===== NGC 4316. See NGC 4315. ===== NGC 4317 is lost. WH's observation (this is II 324) fits in order with the rest of the nebulae he found the same night 13 March 1785, many of which were compared with 13 CVn (= 37 Comae = SAO 63288). II 324 has the same RA offset as I 76 = N4314, though is supposed to be 1 deg 9 arcmin north of that galaxy. There is nothing at WH's position. A possibility for WH's object is NGC 4310 = NGC 4338 (which see). It is at roughly the correct RA (17 seconds preceding WH's), but is 1 deg 50 arcmin south of WH's Dec. This makes it unlikely that this is the object he saw. Finally, Reinmuth, RNGC, and Steinicke have called N4317 a star. I think this is unlikely as WH would have probably noted the object "very small" or "extremely small" rather than simply "small." ===== NGC 4319 = NGC 4345, which see. ===== NGC 4320. Is this possibly also NGC 4368? See that for the speculation. ===== NGC 4321. See NGC 4322, NGC 4323, and NGC 4327. ===== NGC 4322 is probably a star. It, NGC 4323, and NGC 4327 were all found by Tempel while he was observing NGC 4321 (M 100) and NGC 4328. He only gives descriptive places for them with respect to the brighter objects, so the NGC positions are only approximate. His entire note for the three objects reads (translation by me), "... on my drawing, there are three other very faint nebulae in the vicinity, two north of and close to 2890 [N4321], and the third south of 2894 [N4328]." Given Tempel's propensity for seeing nebulae where only stars exist, I think that the star northwest of M100, and one of the stars southeast, along with the galaxy to the northeast, are Tempel's three objects. It's certainly possible to argue with this since Tempel gives no details about the appearance of his objects, but this is a reasonable hypothesis under the circumstances. The galaxy to the northeast has been called "NGC 4322 = NGC 4323" by many observers. Since Tempel's description is very clear about his having seen two "nebulae" north of M100, the identity cannot be true. This has the unfortunate consequence that the number 4322 is put onto a star, but I prefer this to inverting the RA order. ===== NGC 4323 is the galaxy northeast of M100 (= NGC 4321) that has been called "NGC 4322 = NGC 4323" in many catalogues and lists. See NGC 4322 for the story on this. ===== NGC 4325 is probably also NGC 4368, which see. ===== NGC 4327 is perhaps one of the two stars near NGC 4321 and NGC 4328 listed in the table. I don't see anything else "south of [N4328]" that Tempel might have included in his sketch. See NGC 4322 for more details. There is what appears to be an asterism of four stars on the POSS1 version of DSS near the nominal position for N4327. This is in fact a single star with a group of four plate defects superposed. Malcolm noticed this, and I'm grateful that he called my attention to it. ===== NGC 4328. See NGC 4322, NGC 4323, and NGC 4327. ===== NGC 4332. See NGC 4512. ===== NGC 4336 = IC 3254, which see. Frost must have thought that IC 3254 was a new object as he measured its position to be over 2.5 arcmin away from that for NGC 4336. The GC/NGC position itself, from JH's two observations, is even further. (D'Arrest's position is within a few arcsec of the modern position, but JH did not get a copy of d'A's monograph in time to cross-check the GC positions.) In any case, as I explain in the story for I3254, the identity seems likely, so I've adopted it for the main table. ===== NGC 4338 = NGC 4310. d'A's RA is just one minute following NGC 4310, and his description is apt. Also, he measured N4310 on three nights (his numbers 80, 164, and 380), and N4338 on one other night (night 110). ===== NGC 4341 = IC 3260, NGC 4342 = IC 3256, and NGC 4343. There is a group of five galaxies here to which three NGC numbers and four IC numbers apply. Needless to say, the identifications are pretty thoroughly scrambled in the literature. Here is the story: William Herschel (1786) saw three objects (III. 94-96) here, but gave only one position for the them. John Herschel included only one of the objects in his 1833 catalogue, calling it "III. 94," the first of the three numbers assigned by his father. When he prepared the GC, he used his position for this brightest object, but his father's position for the other two, thus giving the lowest of WH's numbers to the object with the largest right ascension. Dreyer used a mean value of JH's position and one from d'Arrest (1867) for the brightest object, but still had only WH's positions for the remaining two. Thus, the inverted order of WH's numbers remains in NGC, with the largest NGC number (4343) receiving the smallest WH number (III. 94). In sorting out the NGC numbers, I've simply assumed that WH saw the brightest three galaxies here, and that JH and d'Arrest measured the brightest one of these. These three galaxies also have the highest surface brightnesses of the five objects in question, so this is an entirely reasonable assumption to make (see RC3 for the data). This means, however, that the brightest object, NGC 4343, has the smallest right ascension on the sky, but the largest RA in NGC. Also, I've followed RC1 (and most other modern catalogues) by assigning N4342 to the middle of the three galaxies, and N4341 to the remaining (following) object, thus retaining the reverse order. Bigourdan's observations of 1895 and 1907 of all five objects here yielded four numbers in the second IC. Schwassmann measured four of the five objects on a Heidelberg plate (the fifth object that he did not measure probably appears stellar on the plate). Dreyer used these four accurate positions in IC2; this has led Herzog (1967 and CGCG) to suggest dropping the questionable NGC numbers altogether, and simply use the unambiguous IC numbers instead. RC2 and RC3 adopted this solution. However, this discards two NGC numbers which we can now assign based on modern photometric data. So, I have adopted the identifications suggested here. Appendix 6 in RC3 is a table of most known identifications for all five of the galaxies. The curious are referred to it for cross-references into the modern literature and catalogues. You should also see NED for the new names added to these galaxies since 1991. ===== NGC 4342 = IC 3256. See NGC 4341. ===== NGC 4343. See NGC 4341. ===== NGC 4345 = NGC 4319. This was found by J. G. Lohse with Mr. Wigglesworth's 15-inch refractor. Lohse's position (which has nothing in it) is just a minute of time following N4319, and his description fits the galaxy. Since Lohse does not mention N4319 in the observation, this is almost certainly identical to it. Carlson called N4345 a star, an identification picked up by RNGC. I think it very unlikely that a star would be mistaken for a "F, pL, gbM" nebula in a 15-inch telescope. The more likely explanation is simply a 1 minute error in the RA. ===== NGC 4347 may be NGC 4348, or it may be the star noted in the position list. There is another fainter star to the southwest of the brighter one that may play a role in this object, too. This was found by Peters, included on his charts, and published as a "nova" in his first list of positions. He notes there that the object "... hardly can be G.C. 2911 [N4348] ...; but upon my chart I find no nebula drawn in this place." At the end of his second list, he appends this note, "The note to Nova 12h 16m42s; -2d 27.7m [1860.0] should be cancelled, as on 1881, May 5, I have seen and drawn upon my chart also the nebula G.C. 2911." It is still possible that the N4347 = N4348 -- Peters never says that he saw both nebulae at the same time. Nevertheless, that is his clear implication, so the equality is a possibility, no more. I'm slightly more inclined to the notion that he somehow mistook the two stars as a nebula. Whether this is true or not may never be known as both objects must be shown on his charts. Whatever the case, there is certainly no nebula at the position Peters gives for NGC 4347. ===== NGC 4348 may also be NGC 4347, which see. ===== NGC 4351 = NGC 4354, which see. See also NGC 4367. ===== NGC 4352. See NGC 4368. ===== NGC 4353 = IC 3266. Peter's position is not very good. That led Schwassmann to miss the NGC number when he picked up the galaxy on three of his 6-inch plates from Heidelburg. Still, Adelaide Ames caught the identity when she prepared her Virgo Cluster catalogue in 1930. However, CGCG muddied the picture again by calling the galaxy "I3265 = I3266 (= N4353?)". IC 3265, which see, is a star north-northwest of the galaxy. ===== NGC 4354 = NGC 4351. Swift's position is only 5 seconds of time following N4351, and his note "in vacancy" makes the identity virtually certain. Had there been another galaxy nearby, Swift would have noted that instead. The identity was first suggested in one of the Harvard papers (Dreyer has an IC2 Note that Frost did not find the object on a 4-hour plate), and was copied into Carlson's 1940 paper. RC1 and RNGC picked it up from there. ===== NGC 4355 = NGC 4418. This is one of the 30-odd nebulae that David Todd ran across during his search for the "trans-neptunian" planet in 1877. He estimated very crude positions for most of them using the setting circles on the USNO's 26-inch refractor. Fortunately, he also gave us sketches of the star fields around each of the objects and, often, measurements of RA differences between the stars and the nebulae. Unfortunately, these were not enough to allow Dreyer to identify the objects. Dreyer included in the NGC some objects that he thought might be "novae", but he skipped others that seem, to me, just as likely to be included -- and that were, in fact, new nebulae. In any event, Dreyer did include Todd's 17th nebula as NGC 4355. Using the sketch of that nebula's field, it's easy to see on the Sky Survey prints/films (even in a DSS field at least 15 arcmin on a side) that it clearly refers to NGC 4418. ===== NGC 4357 = NGC 4381, which see. ===== NGC 4358, and NGC 4362 = NGC 4364. All three numbers are credited to WH, who recorded them as follows on 17 April 1789: WH delta RA delta Dec Star Desc III 799 1m 12s p 1d 36m n 71 UMa vF, vS III 800 1m 09s p 1d 37m n 71 UMa } } Two, both cF, cS, R. III 801 " " " " } The "lE" notation in NGC comes from John Herschel, who observed only two of these on 1 May 1831: JH WH RA (1830) NPD Desc 1230 III 799 12 15 42.1 30 40 32 F, lE, the p of 2 1233 III 800 12 15 50.1 30 41 32 eF, the last of 2 (the other was III 799; III 801 not seen). Note the relative positions, "p of 2" and "last of 2." These notes about the positions should take precedence over any comments about shape since apparent axis ratios depend on the limiting isophote of a galaxy (the deeper the isophote, the rounder a galaxy appears). This is how matters stood when JH put together the GC. There he assigned three numbers (GC 2914, 18, 20) assuming that all three objects existed, and added a comment about the RA of the first possibly being a minute later than listed. I've not been able to track the source of this comment, as all the positions measured up to that time are pretty much in agreement. The other pre-NGC observation was by d'Arrest, who also saw only two objects here (on 4 Oct 1866): h H RA (1860) Dec 1230 III 799 12 17 28.1 +59 09 38 1233 III 800 12 17 32.1 +59 08 02 d'Arrest's descriptions and comments are all in Latin which I don't read. I can make out the comment "III 800 is south-following" in the description for III 799, and there is a four-line note about III 801 in the description for III 800 (which also mentions the star just to the south). Unfortunately, Lord Rosse and his observers did not look at these galaxies. Based on JH's work on the GC, Dreyer again assigned three numbers. Later (WH's Scientific Papers, and MN 73, 37, 1912), he noted: "Very probably the word `two' refers to III 799 and III 800, as nobody seems to have seen three nebulae in the place." Both Bigourdan and Reinmuth also only saw two of the three -- though Bigourdan claimed to have missed N4362 while Reinmuth could not find N4364 -- so that has added to the confusion. As Glen (Deen) noted, there are indeed three galaxies here; all are mentioned in CGCG (only two entries, but the north-preceding is a pair), MCG (all three), and UGC (the brightest is UGC 7479; the other two are in the Notes). RNGC, of course, assigns one number to each galaxy (but not the ones you might expect; more below). Modern data for the three galaxies are as follows: RA (B1950.0) Dec D d m(p) CGCG MCG Other 12 21 34.56 +58 39 27.5 0.3 x 0.2 16.9 293-017w +10-18-037 NPM1G +58.0113 12 21 39.15 +58 39 43.7 0.9 x 0.7 14.4 293-017e +10-18-038 UGC 7479 12 21 48.45 +58 38 15.6 0.7 x 0.4 15.2 293-018 +10-18-039 --- Positions are from GSC, diameters are my own measured on POSS, and are roughly at the 25th mag/sq arcsec isophote. Magnitudes are from the CGCG. For 293-017 which has a combined magnitude of 14.3, I've assumed that the surface brightnesses of the two components are equal, and have simply apportioned the combined magnitude according to the ratio of the areas of the galaxies (the first covers 9% of the total area covered by both, so has 9% of the total light, etc.). In short, these numbers support Dreyer's contention that WH actually saw only two galaxies -- the third is most likely much too faint for WH to have seen (JH, d'Arrest, and Bigourdan, using similar-sized telescopes, certainly did not see it; it was also apparently not recorded on the plate which Reinmuth examined). Therefore, only the two brighter galaxies get NGC numbers. Since it is clear that the relative orientation seen by everyone (except WH) is nw-se, the nw object must be h1230 and the se must be h1233. Since Dreyer has assigned these to N4358 and N4362, respectively, the last number (N4364) is left by itself. This one comes only from WH's description ("Two"). Since it is the last number in the sequence of three, I propose that it be put on the 2nd galaxy. Finally, RNGC did its usual hatchet job on the field, leaving a mess behind. It put one number on each of the three galaxies, managing only one correct out of the three: N4358 = CGCG 293-017w -- wrong. N4362 = CGCG 293-018 -- right. N4364 = CGCG 293-017e -- wrong. ===== NGC 4362 = NGC 4364. See NGC 4358. ===== NGC 4364 = NGC 4362. See NGC 4358. ===== NGC 4365. There is just the slightest whisper of a possibility that this may also be IC 3281 (which see) -- but I did not write it loudly enough for you to hear. ===== NGC 4367 is probably the double star near d'A's position. In his description, d'A has this 35 seconds following a brighter nebula also found by him. That nebula is NGC 4351, and the separation is correct. Also, d'A has two accordant observations of N4367, so it is reasonably clear that he saw a real object, nebulous or not. The second of the two stars is quite faint, though. This may account for Frost's not finding any nebulosity at d'A's position on a 4-hour Bruce plate. Dreyer, in an IC2 note, has this nebula among several that Frost did not find. ===== NGC 4368 is probably NGC 4325. Dreyer notes that the "... RA is possibly 1 min too great (see under II 64 [= N4352]). Not found by Bigourdan." The note for N4352 reads, "RA is 1 min too great. The same is the case with several other nebulae observed this night (Sw 174, March 15, 1784) ..." The actual differences between WH's RA's and the true RA's varies from about 40 sec to well over a minute for the seven objects mentioned by Dreyer (N3810, N4067, N4294, N4313, N4352, N4371, and N4429). If N4368 is indeed N4325 (discovered by d'A), its difference is 1 min 28 sec, not an unreasonable value considering the other errors. The declination is 1.5 arcmin different, well within WH's usual observing errors. I can only speculate about the source of WH's error, since it does not affect every object observed in Sweep 174. Thus, it could be a correction due to a mistimed comparison star -- but different affected objects have different comparison stars. Or it could be that WH forgot to make the correction to the center of the field for the objects -- but since his field was only 15 arcmin across, the largest correction could only be half that value, or a bit less than 30 seconds of time at a declination of +10 deg. Also, this is a necessary correction for every object which does not sweep across the field center -- which is almost every object observed. I can't see WH forgetting such an obvious correction for a few objects in a sweep, but not for most others. Whatever caused the errors, the fact that they exist is clear, and N4368 seems to be affected. Finally, there is also the faint possibility that N4368 is N4320 (also found by d'A). However, that is fainter and smaller than N4325, and WH's Dec would be off by 3.0 arcmin rather than the 1.5 arcmin to N4325. The RA would also be further off, too, 1 min 40 sec, so overall, I do not think this is a strong possibility at all. ===== NGC 4371. See NGC 4368. ===== NGC 4374. See NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4381 = NGC 4357. The equality was suggested by Dreyer, and confirmed by Bigourdan who did not find N4381, but who did discover N4357 and made eight observations of it on two different nights. Dreyer suggests a simple 1 minute error in WH's RA. Since the descriptions match, the identity is almost certain. ===== NGC 4387. See NGC 4407 = NGC 4413, and NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4388. See NGC 4407 = NGC 4413, and NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4390 = IC 3320, which is probably also = IC 3319 (which see). WH's position is enough off that the identity of the nebula was questioned by d'A (he got it right). Dreyer adopted d'A's position. See N4398 for more on this field. ===== NGC 4393 is identical to neither IC 3323 (a foreground star) nor to IC 3329 (a knot in the galaxy). See the IC numbers for a bit more. ===== NGC 4394. See NGC 4397. ===== NGC 4395. See NGC 4399 which, along with NGC 4400 and NGC 4401, are HII regions in NGC 4395. ===== NGC 4397 is an asterism of four stars (or perhaps three stars and a galaxy). It is located where Tempel saw it, "... 5 sec following, 6 arcmin north of II 55 [N4394]." Another apparent asterism exists another three arcmin to the north -- but only on the POSS1 red plate and, therefore, on the DSS. It looked real enough to fool me, but Malcolm caught it. My thanks to him for letting me know about my mistake. ===== NGC 4398 is a star. d'A has only one observation of this, found while he was looking for N4390 (which see). His description for N4398 includes mention of two stars to the southwest: an 11th magnitude star 16.35 seconds preceding, and a 13th magnitude star 11.60 seconds preceding his "nebula." Both stars are there (the separations for 1950 are 16.58 seconds and 11.18 seconds, both well within the error bounds of the expected values). So, the identification is secure. ===== NGC 4399, NGC 4400, and NGC 4401 are bright HII regions in NGC 4395. WH found N4395 and N4401, the main body of the galaxy and the brightest HII region, recording them as two nebulae under one number. Thus, the NGC has the WH numbers given rather awkwardly as "V 29.1" and "V 29.2." Lord Rosse (or his observers) found the other two objects, but did not measure their offsets from nearby stars or the nucleus. Instead, they printed a diagram which can be pretty easily related to the sky, in spite of some distortion. The lack of offsets also allowed Dreyer to give only approximate positions for N4399 and N4400. Lord Rosse's sketch of the field, however, makes the identifications clear. ===== NGC 4400. See NGC 4399. ===== NGC 4401. See NGC 4399. ===== NGC 4402. See NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4405 = IC 788, which see. ===== NGC 4406. See NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4407 = NGC 4413. This came about because JH has two observations of this (and NGC 4388 in the same sweeps) which he did not equate. N4407 comes from the second observation and is described only as "The following of 2." His description for N4388 reads, "vF, E, the p of 2, dist about 30 sec in RA." He marks the RA of N4407 with two colons (very uncertain), and the declination with a plus/minus sign. So, it is clear that he measured only N4388, and simply estimated the position of N4407 from the preceding galaxy. The only galaxy that JH could have seen roughly 30 sec following N4388 is N4413, so the identity of N4407 is almost certain. The identity with N4413 was suggested at both Lick and Harvard. Both are quoted in Carlson's 1940 list. As a result of JH's observations, N4388 has two separate GC numbers (2949 and 2956). Curiously, Dreyer caught the identity of the GC numbers for N4388, but not for N4407 (= GC 2968) and N4413 (= GC 2974). Perhaps he was a bit confused by WH's observations here which (correctly) call N4388 the south- following of a pair (with N4387) rather than the preceding of a pair with N4413 as noted -- also correctly -- by JH. ===== NGC 4409 = NGC 4420. WH found NGC 4409 (= III 17) on 23 Feb 1784; he has only the one observation of it. He found NGC 4420 (= II 23) a month earlier on 24 January, and made a second observation of it sometime later. JH found N4420, but not N4409, so speculated that "This (N4420) may possibly be identical with III 17." Since there is nothing at all in either of WH's positions (that for N4409 precedes the galaxy by 33 seconds and is 2.5 arcmin north; and that for N4420 follows the true position by 14 seconds and is 3.8 arcmin south), and since there are no other galaxies in the area that WH could have seen, JH's suggestion is probably correct. Dreyer carried it over into the NGC description, and from there, it was adopted by Reinmuth, Harvard, Carlson, and RC1. ===== NGC 4411 = IC 3339 (which see) and "NGC 4411B." We know now that there are a pair of low-surface-brightness spirals here, one at the position of NGC 4411 = IC 3339, and the other at the position of Bigourdan 298 noted by Dreyer in an IC2 Note for N4411. Dreyer, however, assumed the two positions to apply to just a single galaxy, so there has been some confusion in the modern catalogues as to which galaxy bears the number NGC 4411. The solution I've adopted is to follow the historical positions -- Peters's and Schwassmann's clearly apply to the preceding of the pair of galaxies -- as well as to give a bit of credit to Bigourdan for finding the second galaxy. The slightly awkward numbering that apparently started with Holmberg in his 1958 monograph on galaxy photometry puts the numbers "N4411A" and "N4411B" on the galaxies. This was adopted by the de Vaucouleurs for RC1, and persisted through RC3 -- so we're probably stuck with it. Still, as I said, it gives some credit to Bigourdan for digging out the eastern galaxy. It is actually about half a magnitude brighter than the western, though I think that the star superposed on the western might shield the galaxy from sight in some circumstances or enhance it in others. ===== NGC 4413 = NGC 4407, which see. ===== NGC 4418 = NGC 4355, which see. N4418 itself has notes in the GC and NGC. There is enough slop in the original position from WH, and enough of a difference between his description and JH's, that JH was not convinced of the identity between his nebula and his father's. In the event, he sorted it out correctly, and Dreyer -- citing additional observations by Lord Rosse and d'Arrest -- confirmed the identity. The NGC 4355 label comes from an observation by David Todd. See the brief discussion under that number for additional identification adventures. ===== NGC 4420 = NGC 4409, which see. See also NGC 4910. ===== NGC 4424. See IC 793 and IC 3366. ===== NGC 4425. See NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4426 = NGC 4427 is a double star. This is one of the very few objects which shows a bit of haste on Dreyer's part in his final work on assembling the NGC. D'Arrest's and Bigourdan's positions and descriptions are clearly pointing at the same object, and the two objects are adjacent in the NGC, yet not until he saw the proofs did Dreyer add the note "These are evidently identical (note added in press)." In IC2, he has an additional note: "According to M. Wolf (list IV.) only two stars 36 arcsec apart, n and s." The stars are actually separated by only 13-14 arcsec, and Wolf's southern position points to empty sky -- this may be a defect on his plate. In any event, there is no doubting the identification as both d'A and Bigourdan have two observations of the double, and both describe it as a small cluster, perhaps with nebulosity involved (there is none). There is a mistake in Bigourdan's notes, though his published position (in his first Comptes Rendus list) is correct. He chose an anonymous comparison star, noting that it is "+1m 31s, -7 arcmin" from BD +28 deg 2116. The correct distance in RA is -29.8s, so Bigourdan may have meant to write -31s. ===== NGC 4427 = NGC 4426 (which see) is a double star. ===== NGC 4429. See NGC 4368. ===== NGC 4430. See NGC 4453. ===== NGC 4435. See NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4438. See NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4441. See NGC 4512. ===== NGC 4442. See IC 793. ===== NGC 4443 has usually been taken as a star following NGC 4435 and NGC 4438. Exactly which star, I'm not sure as there is nothing at the NGC position aside from a 19th or 20th magnitude object. In any event, the only evidence we have for this comes from one observation in 1849 when LdR sketched this as the last of 11 nebulae. The sketch is fairly crude and the distances between the objects does not correspond well to what we see on the sky. Indeed, LdR himself says, "Found the objects as in sketch, positions being put down very rudely." Nevertheless, we -- and Dreyer who identified the objects for LdR's 1880 monograph -- can recognize the brightest galaxies in an east-west swath of sky through the center of the Virgo Cluster. His objects are as follows (in his order): alpha = NGC 4305 beta = NGC 4306 gamma = NGC 4374 delta = NGC 4387 epsilon = NGC 4388 zeta = NGC 4406 eta = NGC 4402 lambda = NGC 4425 theta = NGC 4435 iota = NGC 4438 kappa = NGC 4443 As I noted above, there is nothing in the exact position of LdR's "kappa", but NGC 4461 is not too far away. It is certainly not a big stretch to this galaxy, and its description is a relative fit to the other galaxies. The objection to this is that only one galaxy is shown in the sketch, whereas there are, of course, two on the sky: NGC 4458 is not too far northwest of N4461. Given the hurried nature of the observations, though, it may be that LdR thought N4458 to be a star. It is considerably smaller and fainter than its companion, so this is a possibility. So, I'm going to take N4443 to be a duplicate discovery of N4461, but with some uncertainty. ===== NGC 4445 = IC 793, which see. ===== NGC 4451. See IC 793. ===== NGC 4453. While there is no problem with the identity of JH's object (h 1283), there is a problem with WH's (H II 26). Dreyer notes in the Scientific Papers that the observations in Sweep 131 are "very unsatisfactory" (a criticism that extends to Sweep 132 as well; see NGC 4577 for more). This was the only nebula found in Sweep 131, so there is little to compare it with aside from the "unsatisfactory" observations of the stars. The galaxy that JH found is "eF" in his catalogue, while WH's is "pB, pL, brighter toward the following side." Dreyer notes that NGC 4430 is 20 arcmin in Dec off the position of N4453 -- it is also 30 seconds off in RA. He also has a note from WH that there is a "very large star" 9 minutes, 6 seconds preceding and 22 arcmin south of the nebula. Assuming that N4430 is indeed WH's object, the description fits. But there is no star at WH's offsets. The one that Dreyer suggests (BD +6 deg 2588) is 7 minutes, 29 seconds preceding, and 13 arcmin south. A somewhat brighter star (BD +xx deg xxxx) is at 12 17 22.13, +05 56 56.7 -- 7 minutes, 31 seconds preceding, and 35 arcmin south. Neither is a good match for WH's offsets. JH's much fainter galaxy (the one that we adopt as NGC 4453), however, is 9 min 0 sec following, and 28 minutes north of BD +6 deg 2588, a better -- though not prefect -- match to WH's observation. But the galaxy can hardly be the one WH saw; it is far too faint, too small, and is not at all brighter toward the east. At the end of all this, I'm leaning toward adopting NGC 4430 as II 26, though with considerable uncertainty. At this point, you are probably asking "Why bother? We know where NGC 4453 is." Knowing which galaxy is II 26 will help with the puzzle of NGC 4577 = H III 13, found the same night, and supposedly refered to the same star. See NGC 4577 for more. ===== NGC 4458. See NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4461. See NGC 4443. ===== NGC 4470 = NGC 4610, which see. This may also be IC 3281 (which see), but that is extremely unlikely. It is certainly not IC 3417 (which see) -- that is a star 2.3 arcmin north of the galaxy. ===== NGC 4471 is apparently one of the two stars flanking the position given in the NGC. The object is not listed in any of Schmidt's papers that I've seen, so I have only the NGC to go on. If the position is accurate, then it seems likely that Schmidt did indeed pick up one of the stars. There is a considerably fainter compact galaxy about 1.5 arcmin on to the northwest from the stars, but I doubt that Schmidt could have seen it. ===== NGC 4482 = IC 3427. WH's RA's for many of the objects in Sweep 174 on 15 March 1784 are too large by up to a minute of time. In this case, the error is only 30 seconds. See IC 3427 for more. ===== NGC 4492 = IC 3438, which see. ===== NGC 4496. There are three galaxies in the printed edition of RC3 bearing this number. One of these, VCC 1364 at 12 28 56.4 +04 14 54, has nothing to do with the real NGC 4496 at 12 29 06.6 +04 12 54. This is the brighter of a double galaxy, so is usually called NGC 4496A. Delete the NGC number from the listing for PGC 41450 in RC3. Also delete T, L, B(T), and m'(25). Also see NGC 4505 for a genuine NGC mystery related to this galaxy, rather than simple modern bungling. ===== NGC 4505 is probably NGC 4496. Originally found by William Herschel on 23 February 1784, there is no trace of this on the sky. Yet John Herschel claims to have observed it, too, and it is listed in Reinmuth's photographic reobservation of the Herschel's nebulae. After that, however, it disappears from the catalogues except to appear in errata lists. RC1, for example, considers it to be identical to NGC 4496. Sir William has only one observation of it, and that is refered to a different star than his discovery observation of the nearby NGC 4496, of which he has 3 observations altogether. His description of NGC 4505 -- "vF, cL, r" is brief and could just be construed as a hurried observation of NGC 4496. The positions are not that much different, either. Sir John's single observation places NGC 4505 close to his father's position. His description is even briefer: "eF; the f of 2 in the field." His right ascension is marked "+-", so it is likely that we shall never know exactly what he saw, but there are several faint stars near his place that he could have mistaken for an "eF" nebula. Reinmuth's extended description, "eeF, eS, R; = neb * or *14; *8 sp 7', *11.8 sp 2'; NGC 4505, *11.8, *8 in line" pinpoints a 14th magnitude star near Sir John's place. This may be the star that Sir John himself saw and mistook for a nebula. We are left, then, with Sir William's lone discovery observation to explain. Arguing against the equality with NGC 4496 are the different positions, and the fact that both nebulae were found the same night. However, since different comparison stars were used, it is indeed possible that the two observations that night refer to the same object -- NGC 4496. Until Sir William's original observing notes can be scrutinized, I'll adopt the identity as a working hypothesis. ===== NGC 4508 is a double star at JH's position. He describes it as "vS, R, a * 13 with a burr." This is just how it appears on the POSS1 as the two images are merged. ===== NGC 4510. See NGC 4512. ===== NGC 4512 is probably NGC 4521. Steve Gottlieb has questioned the identity of NGC 4512 as given in the modern catalogues. CGCG, UGC, and MCG all point to the galaxy at 12 30 17.9 +64 09 20 as N4512. However, this object is a pretty faint, low surface brightness spiral, and does not at all match JH's description, "pB, R, psbM; 20'' ". Reinmuth (1926) suggested that this may be the same as NGC 4521. I looked at the field, and at all the objects which John Herschel found in Sweep 412 (N2909, 3231, 3392, 3394, 3622, 3682, 4108, 4210, 4221, 4332, and 4441, as well as 4512; there are no significant systematic offsets in Sir John's positions from the true positions), and only see one other possible candidate for N4512: N4510 (curiously, d'Arrest calls this a very small cluster; his position is accurately on the galaxy, though). This is just 30 arcmin north of JH's position, and a bit preceding. However, JH calls the object "pB", the same as N4521 which is 1.2 mag brighter than N4510. Aside from that, though, JH's description fits N4510 pretty well. But the magnitude difference makes me cautious about accepting the identity. In addition, N4521 is closer to JH's position for N4512. Everything considered, N4521 is the better match, so is the object that we've adopted as N4512. ===== NGC 4520 = IC 799, which see. ===== NGC 4521 is probably = NGC 4512 (which see). ===== NGC 4526 is probably also NGC 4560, which see. ===== NGC 4529 may be UGC 7697, but the evidence is not very good. Here are my comments in response to a question about this object from Steve Gottlieb in October 1999. Though WH has two observations, neither of his positions fall near any galaxy he could have seen. His earlier position (which JH and Dreyer discount in notes in the GC and NGC; more below) is 1m 20s east and 4.9 arcmin north of UGC 7697, and 2m 39s east and 12.0 arcmin south of CGCG 129-006. His second position is 1m 14s east and 20.5 arcmin north of U7697, and 2m 23s east and 2.4 arcmin north of C129-006. None of this inspires much confidence in WH's positions, especially given that Dreyer quotes his first observation in the Papers: "Suspected a L, eF neb, but tho' I looked at it a good while, I could not verify the suspicion, nor could I convince myself that it was a deception." Dreyer than adds "P.D. apparently only approximate," but the offset in the table is not marked with a colon. U7697 is somewhat larger and brighter than C129-006, and has a slightly higher surface brightness. So, if WH actually saw a galaxy in this area, I think it is more likely that he saw U7697. All in all, however, the situation for making a clear identification for N4529 does not look good, hence the several question marks in the main table. Some additional comments: The NGC note is a slightly reworded version of JH's GC note with the "erratum" in WH's published list merged in. Fortunately, Dreyer decided to give WH's original data in the main table of his 1912 reprinting of WH's first list. Along with the second observation from 6 years later in Dreyer's notes, we apparently have all the data WH collected. Bigourdan's position, which Dreyer sites in support of WH's second observation, is about 20 arcsec off a faint star that Bigourdan must have just barely seen, if, in fact, he saw anything at all. Wolfgang's position makes his galaxy = MCG +04-30-003 = C129-006. I do not know where the PGC's separate entry for N4529 comes from, but the position is closer to PGC 41463 = C129-006 than to anything else, so that probably means that P41482 = P41463. ===== NGC 4530 = 8 Canum Venaticorum (Beta CVn) is a star, though JH recorded a "nebulous atmosphere" around it on four different nights. Dreyer notes in the NGC that of the late 19th century observers, only Tempel suspected the nebulosity, and even he was unsure about its existence. There is no trace of nebulosity on modern photographs, and the star's spectrum shows it to be a normal G0 V main sequence star with no strong emission lines. Thus, it was probably just JH's bad luck to have seen the star on four poor nights. Or his imagination may have been triggered three times by one poor night. In any event, there is only a star here. ===== NGC 4536. Note that the galaxy with this name included in UGC is actually an incorrect reference to IC 3556, which is not NGC 4563. See both the other NGC number and the IC number for more discussion. ===== NGC 4537 is probably the same galaxy as NGC 4542. John Herschel's place for N4542 is good, but Swift's place for N4537 is 49 seconds off in RA (his declination is good, however). Swift's description fits the galaxy nicely, including his note "nearly between two stars." In addition, this galaxy is the brightest of the three in the area. However, south-preceding N4542 is MCG +09-21-019 = CGCG 270-010. It, too, could easily fit Swift's description: "eeF, S, R." It is also "nearly between two stars." However, if this identification is correct, then Swift made errors in both RA (30 seconds of time) and Dec (8.6 arcmin). The galaxy is also considerably smaller and fainter than N4542, and would have been more difficult to dig out. Thus, I'm sticking with the idea, suggested by Steve Gottlieb, that N4537 is most likely the same galaxy as N4542. The RNGC suggestion that it is MCG +09-21-022 is very unlikely as this is the faintest galaxy in the group. ===== NGC 4542. See NGC 4537. ===== NGC 4544. See NGC 4740. ===== NGC 4547 and 4549. These two galaxies are differently identified in CGCG and MCG. William Herschel found both, measured the brighter south-preceding galaxy twice, but the fainter north-following one just once. His positions reduce to (equinox 1950) N4547 12 32 32 +59 11 N4549 12 33 04 +59 15 These are not the positions used in the NGC, however. Those come from John Herschel. Precessing his measurements gives (again for 1950.0) N4547 12 32 26 +59 10.8 N4549 12 32 33 +59 12.4 At least his relative orientation of the objects is the same as his father's, even though he places the two objects much closer together. Checking the GSC and the Sky Survey shows five galaxies in the area. MCG labels MCG +10-18-068 as N4547 and the preceding of the pair MCG +10-18-069 and -070 as N4549, while CGCG labels the pair as NGC 4547/9. The GSC positions of these and the other two in the area are MCG +10-18-068 12 32 16.24 +59 13 35.7 MCG +10-18-069 12 32 34.39 +59 11 31.4 = CGCG 293-030w = N4547 MCG +10-18-070 12 32 37.27 +59 11 16.6 = CGCG 293-030e MCG +10-18-071 12 32 54.48 +59 19 23.4 = VII Zw 473 MCG +10-18-072 12 33 04.01 +59 13 29.4 = N4549 There is also a faint star very close to JH's differential position from the brightest of these five galaxies. It's my guess that this is the object he mistook for the second of the two nebulae. Looking at the descriptions that WH gave the objects, it seems likely to me that the preceding of his two is identical with the brightest object in the area, namely MCG +10-18-069. If so, then WH's relative and absolute positions for the second object point exactly at MCG +10-18-072, making it N4549. The galaxy is faint enough, however, that it ought to be checked at the eyepiece. ===== NGC 4549. See NGC 4547. ===== NGC 4554 is another of Tempel's lost nebulae. He has only a brief note about it in his fifth paper, calling it a very faint nebula 50 seconds preceding, 2.5 arcmin south of NGC 4567/8. This position is in the middle of an extraordinarily empty field with nothing brighter than 19th magnitude for 2-3 arcmin in all directions. Checking the signs of Tempel's offsets turned up nothing that matched in any of the other three possible positions. There is a double star (noted in the position table) that might be his object. It has a faint double galaxy about an arcmin to the northwest, and an even fainter double star a bit further away to the southeast -- these may have enhanced a nebulous appearance a bit. However, adopting the brighter double as Tempel's object would require not only changing the sign of the declination offset, but its size and the size of the RA offset as well. So, I doubt very much that the double is Tempel's intended object. Until Tempel's original observing records can be examined for possible errors, this object will have to remain "lost." ===== NGC 4555 = IC 3545. Here is another case where Wolf made a mistake in identifying an NGC object on one of his plates. He put the NGC number on a faint object (this one about 2 arcmin south of the brighter galaxy) that could not have been seen by the Herschels, and recorded the correct brighter object as a new nebula. This could have been a simple blunder, but I suspect that Wolf simply put too much faith in the NGC position without thinking too much about the relative visibility of the objects. In any case, his positions are good and make the identity clear. ===== NGC 4556. See NGC 4563. ===== NGC 4557 is a triple star. Bigourdan did not provide a precise micrometric offset for this object, but his approximate offset with respect to NGC 4558 (-3 seconds of time, +2.8 arcmin), combined with his description ("Trace of nebulosity which may be accompanied by a star...") clearly identifies the triple as the object which he saw. The MCG and PGC identifications are wrong. Wolf's identification in the Konigstuhl Nebel-List No. 4 is correct, where he calls it stellar and places it between two stars (he obviously resolved the triple while Bigourdan did not). The GSC includes 2 of the three stars, one being the central one measured by Wolf. The position that I've adopted for N4557 is for this central star. ===== NGC 4558. Discovered by John Herschel north-following NGC 4556 (found by his father), and given a position 6 seconds following and two arcmin south of the true position, its identification is nonetheless clear as Dreyer gave d'Arrest's micrometrically measured position more weight than Herschel's. The NGC position is only 2 seconds and 0.8 arcmin from the true position. This has not prevented its misidentification in MCG and PGC. MCG gives the name NGC 4557 (which see) to it; PGC follows suit, and tries to save the number 4558 by applying it to IC 3556. Both catalogues are wrong. Wolf's identification in the Konigstuhl Nebel-List No. 4 is correct. ===== NGC 4559. IC 3550, 51, 52, 55, and 63 are HII regions in the arms of this galaxy, found on a Heidelberg plate by Max Wolf. IC 3554 and 3564 are stars superposed on the galaxy. See the IC numbers for a bit more information. ===== NGC 4560 is probably NGC 4526 with a 2 minute error in the RA. Discovered by WH, it was also observed by JH who gave a similar description. JH marked the RA uncertain, however -- I wonder if he simply adopted the RA measured by his father. The declinations of N4526 and N4560 are the same, and the 2.0 minute RA difference is exact to within the errors. In any event, there is nothing in the Herschel's position. The description agrees with the appearance of NGC 4526 with one exception -- N4526 is quite extended, while N4560 is described by both Herschel's as "round." This is the main problem with the notion of the identity, but I find the exact RA difference, combined with identical declinations, arguing pretty compellingly for the identity. ===== NGC 4561 = IC 3569. Found by WH on 27 April 1785, observed again by JH in two sweeps, and rediscovered by Frost on a Harvard plate, there are no other galaxies in the area as bright or as large as this. It is a peculiar Magellanic irregular with two bright knots; one of these may be a superimposed companion. These would have led to JH's seeing the object as mottled, and Frost's description of two "stars" involved also fits. Curiously, JH's mean position from his two observations is within a few arcsec of the modern position from GSC, while Frost's photographic -- and presumeably more accurate -- place is further off. It may be this that led both Frost and Dreyer to include the galaxy in the second IC. ===== NGC 4563. This was found by d'Arrest whose two micrometrically measured positions are very good; the average is used in the NGC. CGCG still applied the number to the wrong galaxy (IC 3556). Nilson copied this identification into the UGC notes for NGC 4556 (= UGC 7765), but transposed two numbers so that his identification is doubly incorrect: "N4536"! Wolf's identification in the Konigstuhl Nebel-List No. 4 is correct. ===== NGC 4567. See NGC 4554. ===== NGC 4568. See NGC 4554. ===== NGC 4571 = IC 3588. Found by WH, and reobserved by JH and d'A, the galaxy's NGC position is pretty well determined. Nevertheless, Schwassmann measured the 14th magnitude star superposed about an arcmin west of the nucleus and called it N4571 in his 1902 survey of the Virgo Cluster. He also picked up the galaxy itself at its correct position, and included it in his list as a new nebula. Thus, the equality of the numbers. N4571 has also occasionally been mentioned as a possible candidate for the Messier number 91. However, M91 has been convincingly shown to be a reobservation of M58 with the declination offset from Messier's comparison star applied with the wrong sign. In addition, N4571 is too faint to have been seen by Messier. ===== NGC 4572 = CGCG 352-037 is a galaxy northwest of NGC 4589. It was seen by both WH and JH, but Bigourdan's observation under "NGC 4572" actually refers to a star a few arcmin southeast of the galaxy. The galaxy has also been taken by some to be identical to IC 802 (which see). But Bigourdan found that (also a star) the same night as his observation of "NGC 4572", and his precise measurements of both show that they cannot be the same. ===== NGC 4577 is possibly WH's first observation of NGC 4591. He saw H III 13 (N4577) only once, and has this to say about it, "A minute before [the transit of 24 Vir], I suspected a S. neb., but while I took out another piece to examine it, I lost it again." Dreyer added the comment about the transit of 24 Virginis, and also noted, "P.D. not taken, clouds. Not seen with certainty by Bigourdan." N4591 is not the only galaxy in the area that WH might have seen, but given his position, and the uncertainty in it, it is perhaps the most likely. There are some other problems with the observation that deserve mention, though. First, the star name, 24 Virginis, is no longer used in the catalogues, and I asked Brent Archinal to dig out the current identification. The star is actually a duplicate entry for 5 Boo (apparently due to a reduction error on Flamsteed's part), so does not exist in Virgo at all. That being the case, there seem to me to be three explanations for Dreyer's comment about the star: 1) the number is a typo; 2) Dreyer misread WH's observation; or 3) WH misidentified the star. I think that a typo is unlikely -- the only stars likely to be seen about the time that WH made the observations are R Vir or 31 Vir. Getting a typo out of either of those would be difficult. I also think that an error on Dreyer's part is unlikely -- his work on the NGC and ICs is clear proof that he rarely made transcription errors. This leaves the most likely explanation of an identification error by WH. In any event, the comment about "24 Vir" does not help us much in pinning down NGC 4577. Other relevant thoughts and comments: WH's sweep covered a 2 degree wide strip roughly between +5 deg and +7 deg (1950). The value of the polar distance in the NGC comes from the GC, but JH does not indicate how he arrived at it (or the description, "vF, vS"). If we take the polar distance to be the same as WH's comparison star (11 Vir) for the RA, then the declination would be 15 arcmin south of the GC and NGC value. Unfortunately, WH has only one other nebula found the same night, II 26 (which is probably = NGC 4430 and is discussed under NGC 4453). That is plagued by similar problems, so offers little help in resolving the case of NGC 4577. There are no galaxies in any of the places that come from WH's observations, from GC/NGC, or from attempting to correct WH's RAs using the idea that H II 26 = NGC 4453 (which see) is actually NGC 4430. However, the approximate RA that we do have, along with the constraints on the declination, point to either NGC 4580 or NGC 4591 as probably being the object that WH saw. Since N4580 is H I 124, and N4591 is III 504, the sparce description of N4577 strongly suggests that it is N4591. Pending a different identification of "24 Vir," I'm going to take N4591 as the second nebula that WH found on the night of 28 Jan 1784. ===== NGC 4580. See NGC 4577. ===== NGC 4582 is a star found by Sidney Coolidge with the Harvard 15-inch refractor. He has a micrometrically measured position that agrees well with the modern positions. In common with many of the other "nebulae" discovered in the 1850s and 1860s with this telescope, there is no nebulosity associated with the star. ===== NGC 4589. See NGC 4572. ===== NGC 4591 may also be NGC 4577, which see. ===== NGC 4593. See NGC 3679. ===== NGC 4600 is probably not also NGC 4624, which see. ===== NGC 4602. See NGC 3679. ===== NGC 4604. ESGC is the source of this identification. However, since I have not seen Peters's Copernicus articles, I cannot be sure that this is the correct object. Since the NGC position is just 10 arcmin out (another digit error), however, this identification is a good guess for the time being. Let the RC3 stand as is for now. ===== NGC 4610 = NGC 4470. Dreyer, in his notes in the Scientific Papers, shows convincingly that H II 19 = N4610 is the same galaxy as NGC 4470, and that WH himself was at least aware that he had made a mistake in identifying one of Messier's nebulae in the Virgo Cluster. Dreyer reproduces one of WH's sketches of the I 7 and II 19 field -- it matches the appearance of M49, an accompanying star, and NGC 4470 perfectly. ===== NGC 4611 = IC 805, which see. ===== NGC 4618 = IC 3667, which see. ===== NGC 4624 = NGC 4665 (which is also = NGC 4664, which see). JH notes that the "RA [is] ill-observed," but did not mark it uncertain. During the same sweep, he made a one-degree error in the polar distance for NGC 4636, an error that he himself suggested, and that Dreyer finally rectified for the NGC. Thus, NGC 4624 cannot be NGC 4636 as suggested by Reinmuth and adopted by RNGC. Instead, it is most likely NGC 4665 which JH described as "B, pL" in two other sweeps. This, and the appearance of the bright bar of the galaxy, matches his terse description for N4624, "B, E." In addition, his declination is correct for all three observations. There is a faint possibility that N4624 is N4600, but JH's two observations of that make it "F, S" in contrast to his note on N4624. In addition, the declination of N4600 is off JH's measured dec for N4624. ===== NGC 4625 = IC 3675, which see. ===== NGC 4633 = IC 3688, which see. Also see NGC 4740. ===== NGC 4634. See IC 3688 = NGC 4633. ===== NGC 4636 is not NGC 4624, which see. ===== NGC 4637 and NGC 4638. The brighter of the two galaxies now carrying these numbers was found by WH (he actually found it twice, so it has two entries in his catalogue). The fainter, a much smaller spiral of fairly low surface brightness with a faint star superposed west of the nucleus, was seen only once in 1854 by Lord Rosse (or his observer), who noted only a "Double nebula; faint nebulosity connects them." Given this sparce description, Dreyer assigned an approximate position to the fainter and called it NGC 4637, giving NGC 4638 to WH's brighter object. He also added a note in the NGC suggesting that Lord Rosse had actually seen M60 (NGC 4649) and NGC 4647, which are just 12 arcmin northeast. This would explain why no other observers (aside from LdR and Herman Schultz) recorded the object as a double nebula. Schultz's observation is an interesting one. He has an extensive note in which he claims that the nebula is clearly double (in spite of relatively poor seeing on the night of observation), nearly on the parallel, and with a star of 10th magnitude north-preceding (which there indeed is; there is no such star north-preceding N4647 and M60). Like LdR, he says nothing about the relative brightness of the objects, but records his surprise that neither of the Herschel's noticed that the object was double and extended. Curiously, he gives measurements (on two different nights) of only one of the nebulae, though he specifically mentions that the micrometer wire, aligned with the equator, nearly bisected both objects. His reduced position is that of NGC 4638, the brighter object. In his Virgo Cluster survey, Schwassmann listed only one object here and assigned it the first NGC number of the pair. His description fits the brighter object, however, and he noted that the identity was uncertain and that the object could be NGC 4638 instead. His position is peculiar, too: the RA is that of the fainter eastern galaxy, while the declination is that of the brighter western object. Remembering that Schwassmann's plate was taken with a 6-inch lens, I suspect that the plate recorded only the brighter object and that Schwassmann made a measurement or reduction error in his RA. Dreyer, however, had only Schwassmann's entry to go on, not a modern sky survey. So, he could not know about the potential problems in the Heidelberg observation. Thus, he adopted Schwassmann's observation as applying to the fainter object, and put a note in IC2 to that effect. My own guess, without Schultz's confirmation of the duplicity of the object, would have been that Dreyer was correct in his supposition about LdR having misidentified the objects he observed in 1854. If this is the case, then NGC 4637 is a reobservation of NGC 4647 (found by JH) rather than the very faint companion to NGC 4638. However, Schultz's observation seems to clearly point not to M60 and its companion, but to N4638 and its companion. Still, LdR and Schultz could have seen the fainter object -- both have others just as faint in their lists -- especially since it is enhanced by the superposed star, so the "classic" numbering for this pair of galaxies is still a possibility. I should note, too, that there has been some confusion in the modern catalogues as to which number applies to which object. Dreyer unfortunately confused the issue a bit with his IC2 note, and also with his original numbering: JH had the fainter companion coming second in the GC. Nevertheless, Dreyer clearly meant NGC 4638 to apply to WH's object, so that is the identification I've adopted, leaving NGC 4637 as probably applying to the faint companion -- or possibly to NGC 4647. ===== NGC 4638 is probably also NGC 4667, which see. Also see NGC 4637. ===== NGC 4647. Is NGC 4637 (which see) possibly an observation of this object? ===== NGC 4648. See NGC 4972 = NGC 4954. ===== NGC 4649 = M 60. See NGC 4637. ===== NGC 4652. There is no doubt about the identity of the galaxy that JH found; his position and description "Not vF, pL, gbM. It is almost 6' dist np two B sts 8 and 10m" are accurate. The NGC comment "2 B sts 6' np" comes from LdR via Dreyer. Lord Rosse has the position angles of the two stars 180 deg out. He also comments at the beginning of the observation "Front view." This may have inverted the field of the 72-inch from its normal orientation, leading LdR to the wrong PAs. ===== NGC 4664 = NGC 4665 (which is also = NGC 4624, but that's another story). This is another of WH's early discoveries with a large error in the position. There is nothing at WH's given position. However, in this case, it is a simple digit error in WH's recording or reduction. Dreyer correctly convinced himself that it explains the missing NGC 4664 as a prediscovery observation of N4665 (= H I 142). The star 4.8 seconds preceding (mentioned in both of WH's observations, according to Dreyer) is the clincher here, even if the exact 10 arcmin error in Dec was not in itself enough. ===== NGC 4665 = NGC 4624 = NGC 4664, both of which see. ===== NGC 4667 is probably = NGC 4638 with a 2 minute 30 second error in RA. The Dec's and descriptions are accordant, and there is nothing else in the area that JH might have described as "B, S, R, psbM; 15 arcsec." So, while the identity is a guess on my part, I think it is reasonable one. ===== NGC 4678 = IC 824, which see. ===== NGC 4686 is in the field of IC 3791 = NGC 4695. See the story under the IC number for more. ===== NGC 4689. See NGC 4752. ===== NGC 4692 = NGC 4702, which see. Also see IC 823 for a different confusion. ===== NGC 4695 = IC 3791, which see. ===== NGC 4697. See NGC 3679. ===== NGC 4702 = NGC 4692. D'Arrest has just one observation of NGC 4702 on 4 March 1867, calling it "Doubtless a very small, very much compressed cluster." There is nothing at all in his place. Exactly a minute of time preceding, though, is NGC 4692 which d'A has on two other nights, 16 March 1864 and 3 March 1867. Given the three or four nearby field stars around the galaxy, it is possible that d'A could have believed that he had found a small cluster. While the identity is not certain, I'm confident enough of it to have included it in the position table without colons or question marks. My thanks to Wolfgang who asked about this object. ===== NGC 4705. See IC 825. ===== NGC 4711 = IC 3804, which see. ===== NGC 4714. See NGC 4722 and 4723, below. ===== NGC 4718 may be IC 825 (which see), but is probably not. ===== NGC 4722 and 4723. These are two nebulae found by Tempel, described in his fifth paper simply as "Following [GC] 3244 [NGC 4714] are two more small class III nebulae which I have sketched, but have still not been able to measure" (my translation of his note in German). Dreyer adopted the north polar distance of N4714 and added a bit to its RA (with a plus-minus sign to indicate the uncertainty) to arrive at an approximate position for Tempel's two nebulae. Bigourdan was the next to look for them, but his two measurements of "NGC 4722" fall in a blank region of the sky east of NGC 4714. His table is pretty well scrambled at this point, with the declination of his comparison star given only as "+27" and the footnote "Position deduced from that of the nebula, given in the NGC." He has no errata, so just what his comparison object actually is is still a mystery. He's a bit better for N4723 (N4714 is the comparison object), but he only estimates the offset. The nearest object to his estimated position for that is a faint star. In the end, he's no help here. (One other curiosity: he claims, in the "Other Observer's" column that N4722 was seen at Leander McCormick. But the object is not listed in any of the LM papers.) He also found his 302nd new object, which became IC 3833, in the area. He gave no indication, though, that it might be one of the NGC objects (see the IC number for a bit more information about this). That was left to Herbert Howe, who independently discovered and measured the same galaxy that Bigourdan picked up. Howe suggested, in a roundabout way, that it might be one of NGC 4722 or 4723. Howe's comment made it into the IC2 Notes, but Dreyer did not notice that Howe's position was identical to that from Bigourdan for IC 3833. It was probably for this reason that MCG adopted the identity "N4722 = I3833", a reasonable choice under the circumstances. Finally, working on ESGC, I also adopted the MGC's identifications, though without much thought. I did translate Tempel's note at that time, but of course found it to be little help. It's clear, though, that we do not (yet) know which nebulae Tempel found. There are actually four galaxies following NGC 4714 that he might have seen. The two brightest are IC 3833 and NGC 4748, the two closest to NGC 4714 are MCG -02-33-024 and -026. It is tempting to simply put the NGC numbers on the two closest and be done with it. But ... We need to find out if Tempel's sketches still exist. These would clear up questions about not just these two, but several other of his discoveries, too. ===== NGC 4723. See NGC 4722. ===== NGC 4724 is the fainter of a double galaxy seen by both Herschels. It figures in the identification of NGC 4726, NGC 4740 = NGC 4727, and IC 3834, all of which see. ===== NGC 4726. There has been confusion over this number ever since Howe's first note appeared in Volume 58 of the Monthly Notices for 1898 (page 515): The NGC place of this nebula of Tempel's seems to be considerably out, both in R.A. and declination. The correct position is 12h46m18s, -13d40.6m. This precesses to 12 48 55, -13 56.9 for B1950.0, and refers to IC 3834 (which see). The confusion is understandable as Tempel's original note reads simply, "Near the fine double nebula [GC] 3250-51 [NGC 4724-27], 4 arcmin further north, is a fainter companion." Dreyer just took the average of the positions for NGC 4724 and 4727, adopted the RA and subtracted 4 arcmin for the north polar distance. This makes the declination very close to correct, but the RA is off by about 9 seconds. Tempel's nebula is a spindle galaxy; this is probably why Howe missed it. In any case, he took the only other galaxy he could find in the area, the one we now call IC 3834 (which is probably not NGC 4740, by the way; see the other numbers for notes). ===== NGC 4727 = NGC 4740. This is the brightest of a group of galaxies, and the brighter of a close pair (NGC 4724 is the fainter of the pair). It was seen by both Herschels, as well as by Tempel, Swift, Bigourdan, and Howe. Considerable confusion in the NGC and IC numbers has resulted. See NGC 4740 for the story, and also see NGC 4726 for one of Tempel's nebulae that almost got away. ===== NGC 4729 and NGC 4730. This problem arose because John Herschel's original observations of 8 June 1834 yielded only very rough estimates of the positions of the two galaxies (see his Results of Observations...at the Cape of Good Hope... of 1847 for more information.) Inasmuch as the two galaxies were not observed again until 1920, Dreyer had no choice but to use Herschel's rough places when the NGC was prepared for publication in 1888. Ron Buta came across this same problem some years ago during his classification of galaxies on the Whiteoak PSS extension. In a letter of 3 Aug 1977, he suggested that the galaxies at 12 49 00.2 -40 51 33 (= ESO 323-G16, 1950 positions) and 12 49 14.0 -40 52 32 (= EU 323-G17) are N4729 and N4730, respectively. Andris Lauberts came to the same conclusion at about the same time when he was preparing ESO/Upps List VI. I entirely agree with their suggestions as these are the two brightest and most easily seen objects south-preceding NGC 4744 where Herschel noticed them. The two galaxies are Vidal and Wickramasinghe's B and C, respectively. (By the way, VW's D = N4744 and E = N4743). Jack Sulentic's incorrect RNGC identifications refer to VW's N3 and N4, and Dawe et al are also wrong: in their list (1970 positions), 12 50 24 -40 59 54 = N4729 and 12 50 38 - 41 00 46 = N4730. More confusion: under the designation HB 288 (more on that in a moment), Sandage (Ap. J. 202, 563, 1975) gives the position of N4729, but the velocity of N4730 (compare VW and Dawe et al). Unfortunately, the de Vaucouleurs and I directly copied this mismatch into the Second Reference Catalogue (where the data are under the single listing for "A1248-40") and Sandage simply repeated his data in his redshift list in A.J. 83, 904, 1978. Finally, the "HB" designations come from a series of papers by Knox-Shaw, Gregory, and Madwar in the Helwan (formerly Khedivial) Observatory Bulletins Nos. 9, 15, 21, 22, 30, and 38. N4729 - 30 were noted by Gregory in Bulletin No. 22 as "Not found". However, among the (mostly!) new nebulae noted on the Helwan plates, Gregory suggested that Helwan Bulletin nebulae Nos. 281, 2, or 3 might be N4729 or 30. De Vaucouleurs (in Commonwealth Obs. Memoirs No. 13, his southern Shapley-Ames revision) concurs, but adds No. 288 as a possibility. (He also confuses the nomenclature problem even further by using "HB" for Harvard Bulletin! What a mess.) Actually, N4729 = Helwan Bulletin 288 and N4730 = HB 289. ===== NGC 4730. See NGC 4729. ===== NGC 4732. See IC 3791 = NGC 4695 where this number figures in one of Swift's many mistaken identities. ===== NGC 4736 = M94. Wolf includes a good position for this in his fifth list, but cites neither the Messier nor NGC numbers. He does have a footnote, though, identifying the object as "A.G. Bonn 8688." The galaxy's nucleus is indeed bright enough and small enough that it could be measured precisely and included in the star catalogue. ===== NGC 4740 = NGC 4727. Swift found this during his fourth year (1887 on 27 April) of chasing down faint, "new" nebulae. He gives a position that is about 50 seconds of time west but only half an arcmin south of that for NGC 4727, the brightest galaxy in the area. His description "pF, pS, R, mbM" fits N4727 better than any of the other three galaxies here, including IC 3834, taken by nearly everyone (including me during my sweeping for ESGC) as NGC 4740. Howe suggested, and a short note from Swift published by Howe in Monthly Notices for 1899 seems to concur, that NGC 4740 is actually NGC 4726. But Tempel's observation of N4726 (which see) clearly rules this out -- he places N4726 just four arcmin north of N4724 and N4727, a close pair found by the Herschel's. With IC 3834 being another 45 seconds of time east, it's extremely unlikely to be Tempel's galaxy. Bigourdan did not find NGC 4740 at its NGC place, of course. I checked the other nebulae found by Swift that night -- there were none, at least found by Lewis Swift. His son Edward, then a teenager, actually found four new nebulae on the 27th: NGC 4544, 4633, 4969, and 5309. With the exception of N5309 (which see), these all follow Swift's positions by about 18 seconds of time, and are south by about 30 arcsec (N5309, assuming we have the correct galaxy, follows by 29 seconds, but has a 10 arcmin digit error putting it south by 9 arcmin 10 arcsec). NGC 4727 precedes Swift's position by 50 seconds, so does not agree with the mean RA offset of Edward's nebulae. However, it is indeed 30 arcsec south of Swift's position. (Did Lewis or Edward determine the positions for Edward's discoveries? Lewis does not say in his papers, but because these positions are no improvement over his father's, I would guess that Lewis did them.) I don't think we can make much of this comparison with the mean offsets, though, since N5309 also breaks the pattern, and since N4740 was the only galaxy which Lewis Swift himself found that night. However, of the four galaxies in the area, NGC 4727 -- by far -- comes closest to fitting Swift's description. Thus, I am, in spite of a few misgivings, I am pretty well convinced that NGC 4740 is just another observation of N4727. ===== NGC 4743. See NGC 4729. ===== NGC 4744. See NGC 4729. ===== NGC 4752 may be CGCG 071-058. WH's description "vF, S, E, r" fits very well -- but his position is 38 seconds off in RA, and 15 arcmin off in Dec. Dreyer notes that Bigourdan did not find the galaxy, and gives an additional offset from II 128 = N4689. That leads to a position that is within WH's observational error of the one in his table, so there is apparently no large error in his data collecting and reduction. The fact that his description fits the CGCG galaxy so well, however, suggests that there is an error somewhere in WH's position. But it is not apparent from the information we have on the object, so I've put a question mark on the identity. ===== NGC 4759. See NGC 4776. ===== NGC 4761. See NGC 4776. ===== NGC 4764. See NGC 4776. ===== NGC 4768 and NGC 4769 are a star and a close double star, respectively. They were found by Tempel while he was examining the field around NGC 4770, and his only description of them is copied correctly into the NGC. He gives no accurate positions, but the stars are a striking triplet just where he claims to have seen them "preceding III 525 (N4770) on the parallel." There are no galaxies or other stars that might fit, so the identities are pretty sure. ===== NGC 4769. See NGC 4768. ===== NGC 4770. See NGC 4768. ===== NGC 4772. See NGC 4910. ===== NGC 4776 = NGC 4759b. This is one of a double galaxy that also has two companions. However, there are three NGC numbers for the double: N4759, N4776, and N4778, the latter two from J. Herschel, the former due to WH, d'A, and Tempel. The descriptions make the identifications clear, however: N4759 is noted "double", so N4759A = N4776, and N4759B = N4778 with a 1 minute RA error for N4776 and 78. The companion 1.0' east-northeast N4778 is almost certainly N4761, and -- with somewhat more doubt as Tempel's positions are often coarse -- the companion 4' south of N4776 is N4764. All this means that RC3 needs to be corrected as follows: PGC 43757 = NGC 4778 = NGC 4759a, PGC 43760 = NGC 4764, and PGC 43768 = NGC 4761. PGC 43754 = NGC 4776 = NGC 4759b is OK. ===== NGC 4778 = NGC 4759a. See NGC 4776. ===== NGC 4795. See NGC 4796. ===== NGC 4796. In an earlier list, I called this a star. It is not. It is a compact galaxy superposed on, and interacting with, the eastern arm of NGC 4795. There is no doubt about the identification (Marth places it close following NGC 4795), and though the object looks pretty stellar on the blue POSS1, it is clearly elongated on the red plate (hence on the DSS). My apologies for the confusion. ===== NGC 4797 is almost certainly NGC 4798. D'Arrest saw the two nebulae on different nights. Also his positions are close enough (same RA, 5 arcmin difference in Dec) that the two would make a striking pair that surely would have merited a comment from d'A -- he does not mention other nebulae near the one he saw. So, the identity seems pretty clear. ===== NGC 4798 = NGC 4797, which see. ===== NGC 4805 is a star positively identified by Bigourdan's two observations. In spite of the accuracy of his measurements, he comments that "... near it is a star 13.4-13.5, but it's impossible to tell which direction it is from the nebula's center." This must be the object itself as there is nothing else in the area that he could have seen. Bigourdan also comments, "This whole region is rich in vF nebulae." Since the Coma Cluster is near, it isn't surprising that he saw many nebulae here. ===== NGC 4808. See NGC 5242. ===== NGC 4817. The NGC position, and that in the Comptes Rendus list, are wrong; while the offsets in Bigourdan's big table, and the position reduced from them, are correct. I have not found a correction in any of Bigourdan's errata lists, so I assume that he did not catch the error, or chose to not mention it. In any case, the reduced position falls exactly on a faint galaxy. Bigourdan's note about the star northeast is correct, so the identification is not in doubt. ===== NGC 4820. See NGC 4823. ===== NGC 4823 is one of three galaxies discovered by Wilhelm Tempel south of N4825. His paper in AN 2439 announcing the discovery (of these and many others) is not very helpful. It says only "Quite close to the south [of N4825] are three more faint nebulae." The NGC positions must have been among those that he sent privately to Dreyer (cf. Dreyer's comment on page 11 of the NGC) -- and they seem to be only approximate (N4823's NGC position is actually quite close to N4825). Here are the data (all for 1950): NGC Skiff NGC RA Dec Object RA Dec 4820 12 54 23 -13 27.3 1 12 54 22.9 -13 26 57 4823 12 54 29 -13 24.3 3 12 54 48.0 -13 25 44 4825 12 54 33 -13 23.9 --- 12 54 34.6 -13 23 42 4829 12 54 45 -13 28.3 2 12 54 46.8 -13 28 04 So, we have three galaxies and three NGC numbers that obviously refer to the galaxies (there are no others nearby). Matching things up by position alone -- Tempel's descriptions are the same for all the galaxies -- leads to the identifications that I suggest in the table. These are different from my initial identifications for ESGC. They require only that the RA of N4823 be out by 20 seconds, whereas my first guesses demand declination changes for both N4823 and N4829. I've adopted these for the final version of ESGC. ===== NGC 4824 is a star, pretty accurately measured by Bigourdan. There is no doubting the identity. ===== NGC 4825. See NGC 4823. ===== NGC 4829. See NGC 4823. ===== NGC 4824 = Big. 61, found by Bigourdan while he was measuring positions in the Coma Cluster area, is a star. Bigourdan's measured offsets from his then unnamed comparison star (GSC 01995-01009) are exact, and refer unambigously to another star (GSC 01995-01329). The GSC position is identical, within the errors, to Bigourdan's. ===== NGC 4837 was found by John Herschel who described it only as "A rather doubtful object; haze." There is nothing at the position he gives (12 54 30, +49 04.4), but exactly 30' south is a peculiar double system that he could have seen (m_B = 14.4) during his sweep. The CGCG gives this object the NGC number, and I see no reason not to do likewise. The MCG gives it two numbers, MCG +08-24-011 (the brighter south-preceding object), and +08-24-012, but did not label either one N4837. UGC only gives one number to the pair, and also did not adopt the NGC number. ===== NGC 4838. See NGC 4844. ===== NGC 4844 is probably the star listed in the position list, fingered by both Wolfgang and myself. Tempel gives no position for it, merely saying "... on the parallel with the nebula [NGC 4838], another faint, small one follows..." If the NGC position -- presumeably one that he sent to Dreyer -- is good, then the listed star is the likely candidate. Another possibility is one that I noted in ESGC: the star superposed southwest of the nucleus of NGC 4838. I think now that this is less likely as Tempel probably would have mentioned the proximity to N4838. Other possible stars in the area that he could have seen are at 12 55 37.32, -12 49 09.4 and 12 55 33.08, -12 47 28.3. There is a very faint galaxy near his position, too, but he could not have seen it with his 11-inch refractor. ===== NGC 4845 may also possibly be NGC 4910, which see. ===== NGC 4849 = IC 3935, which see. ===== NGC 4851 is not = IC 839 (which see) which is about 2 arcmin south-preceding. Bigourdan observed both on the same night, and his accurate positions fall within a few arcsec of each object. NGC 4851 does have a faint companion just north-following. Bigourdan may have glimpsed this as his description mentions that N4851 may be "a very small [star] cluster." ===== NGC 4861 = IC 3961. Both of these numbers certainly apply to the galaxy itself and not, as supposed by CGCG, the first to the bright HII region, and the second to the galaxy. William Herschel's and Lord Rosse's (on three nights) descriptions leave no doubt that they saw the galaxy clearly. Not only are Wolf's position and description very accurate, he has also marked the correct object on his plate (though one of the "stars" which he notes as flanking it is actually the HII region). However, the NGC position (from Sir William's observation) is a bit off, and this may have misled both Wolf and Dreyer into believing that Wolf's object was new. I had the pleasure of seeing the galaxy at the 1992 Texas Star Party through Tom Polakis's superb 13", and it exactly matched the descriptions left by the earlier observers. The HII region was quite stellar until I viewed it with a nebular filter: it took on a bit of fuzz then, and the foreground star at the other end of the galaxy faded quite a bit (the galaxy itself faded not quite as much; it must have diffuse oxygen and hydrogen emission spread through it). Modern visual observers do have some advantages over Lord Rosse -- though none of us can yet beat him for sheer aperture! ===== NGC 4862 (which is probably also IC 3999) and NGC 4863 were found by Frank Leavenworth at Leander McCormick in 1886. Both galaxies are off their nominal RA's and are just faint enough that Bigourdan could not find them. He also searched in the wrong direction from his comparison star on one night. I think it was this confusion that led him to rediscover NGC 4862 (see IC 3999 for that story). Both objects are positively identified by the sketches that Leavenworth made of them. Herbert Howe did locate NGC 4862 and gave a corrected position for it, copied into the IC Notes. He states that "Another was suspected perhaps 5 arcmin south of this one." That is about the correct distance north to NGC 4863. Did Howe get his directions reversed, just as Bigourdan did when he was looking for NGC 4862 in this field? ===== NGC 4863. See NGC 4862. ===== NGC 4878, NGC 4879, and NGC 4888. Alister Ling pointed out that my original "short story" on N4878, N4879, and N4888 is confusing. Indeed it was. It is also obviously one of the cases that needs more attention. So, here is a revision. All three NGC objects were found by WH on 23 March 1789, and all are refered to 26 Virginis. Here are his observations: N4878,9 III 758,9 20m 55s f, 1d 53m n Two nebulae, both vF, vS. N4888 II 778 21m 12s f, 1d 54m n F, S, sf a double star. JH recorded only II 778 (h1505): 12 51 46.9, -05 09 16 pF, vS, E, psbM (1830 position) D'Arrest has, like WH, one position for N4878,9, and another for N4888. As always, I'm stuck on his Latin descriptions, but I can make out that there is an 11th magnitude star 5.5s preceding, 1.5m north of his observed place (12 53 09, -05 21.3; 1861) for N4878,9. He also mentions WH's double star near N4888; his 1861 position for that is 12 53 26, -05 19.6. Note that his difference in positions between the objects is close to WH's: 17s in RA and 1.7m in Dec. That is it for the pre-NGC observations. Post-NGC, I've found the following. 1) Bigourdan has eight observations each for N4878 and N4888, but could not identify N4879 with certainty. 2) Ormond Stone also lists N4878 and N4888 as nebulae in the 1893 Leander McCormick list (the novae here are in IC1), but has nothing about N4879. 3) Reinmuth has N4878 as an eF, eS stellar object or star (it is a star) 1.7' south-preceding N4879, the galaxy. 4) MCG has -01-33-064 as N4878, -064a as "4879?" (but this is a defect on the blue POSS1), and -066 as 4888. 5) the first "edition" of ESGC put N4878 at 12 57.8 -05 50 (1950.0), and N4879 = N4888 at 12 58.0 -05 48. When Brian Skiff measured the ESGC positions, he followed my ESGC identifications; the second is clearly wrong since (as I now know; ahem) WH claimed to have seen all three on the same night. So, it is clear that there are only two bright galaxies here. GSC has only one (which I'll call "NGC 4878:"; note the colon), and also misses the bright double star (which WH mentioned) just preceding N4888. There is a star in GSC about 1.5 arcmin southeast of N4878 that I suspect is WH's second "nebula." It is a bit closer to the galaxy than is Reinmuth's star. Here are some positions, either from GSC, or measured by me on POSS1: Object RA (1950.0) Dec Source Adopted identifications (source) Star 12 57 38.9 -05 50 59 HC NGC 4878? (Reinmuth) Galaxy 44.58 04.9 GSC NGC 4878: (Big, Stone, MCG, HC) Star 50.06 31.3 GSC NGC 4879: (HC) Galaxy 58 00.7 48 22 HC NGC 4888 (All) The adopted identifications are based on the assumption that Herschel recorded one of the stars south of the preceding galaxy, thinking it was a second nebula. If he saw the preceding star, then it should be N4878, and N4879 is clearly the galaxy. If he saw the following star -- as I believe he did (it is brighter and nearer the galaxy than the preceding star) -- then the numbers should be reversed: N4878 becomes the galaxy, and N4879 is the star. There is no question about NGC 4888. ===== NGC 4879. See NGC 4878. ===== NGC 4888. See NGC 4878. ===== NGC 4891 (a star) and NGC 4897 (a galaxy) are two different objects. This is an error that goes back to Shapley-Ames: they called the galaxy NGC 4891 when it is in fact NGC 4897. Consequently, just about everybody has used the wrong number since. RC3, however, is correct, and so is DSFG, Megastar, and HyperSky. Both objects were found by Wilhelm Tempel on 21 April 1882, and are described in the same observation, so cannot be identical. Tempel has a micrometrically measured position for the big galaxy which precesses to 12 58 13.7, -13 10 58. Considering the relatively low surface brightness of the galaxy, this is not too far off a good modern position (I measured 12 58 15.04, -13 10 50.3 on the DSS). This is the object to which Dreyer assigned the number NGC 4897. NGC 4891 is mentioned only in Tempel's description of 4897: "2-3' nordlich geht ein feiner Nebelstern voran." A free translation would be, "There is a faint nebulous star 2-3 arcmin north-preceding." The star is in fact not nebulous, and the 17th magnitude galaxy about 30 arcsec north of it cannot be Tempel's object since he was observing with an 11-inch refractor. Many other of his faint "nebulae" have turned out to be nothing more than stars or asterisms, so the identification of N4891 as the star is certain. ===== NGC 4893 = IC 4015 + IC 4016, an interacting system. Wolf's object under this NGC number in his fifth list is a plate defect. ===== NGC 4894. See NGC 4908. ===== NGC 4897 is the big Sc galaxy incorrectly called "NGC 4891" in Shapley-Ames, RC1, RC2, RNGC, and RSA. See NGC 4891 for more. ===== NGC 4908. Malcolm has pointed out that this number and IC 4051 may have been switched by most observers and in most cataloguers. Only Bigourdan and Vorontsov-Velyaminov in MCG put the NGC number on the brighter, larger, south-southeastern object. d'Arrest's position, copied correctly into the NGC, actually falls a bit closer to the smaller, fainter north-northwestern galaxy of the pair. And the IC position, adopted from Kobold's micrometric observation, lands almost exactly on the brighter object because he was apparently the first observer to put the NGC identification on the fainter object. Bigourdan did the opposite, but Dreyer apparently went with Kobold's position simply because, as published, it is has more precision. Bigourdan is still credited as a co-discoverer of the IC galaxy, though. I suspect that Dreyer did not make much of a fuss about the discrepancy between Kobold and Bigourdan because he was distracted by an identification problem involving H III 363 -- JH incorrectly put this number on h 1510 = NGC 4894. Again, Malcolm and I think that WH, like d'Arrest, must have seen the brighter of the two galaxies. So, Dreyer's identification of WH's object as IC 4051 is as misleading as the NGC and IC positions. In any event, because of Kobold's assumption that the NGC position is for the fainter galaxy, just about everyone has the identifications reversed. This probably includes Milton Humason who found a supernova near "IC 4051" in 1950. Unfortunately, Humason does not give a position or a finding chart for the SN and galaxy in his PASP note, but I am pretty sure that it is the brighter, southern object. All this stands on d'Arrest's having actually seen the brighter galaxy. If he actually saw the fainter -- and it is only a tenth of a magnitude or so fainter -- then the NGC and IC have exactly the correct identifications. And so does everyone except Bigourdan and MCG. ===== NGC 4910 may possibly be NGC 4845. There is nothing in WH's place, and Dreyer quotes WH's note in the Scientific Papers: "The place of this neb. is not determined with accuracy." Dreyer adds, "No modern observations known." WH refered two other nebulae -- NGC 4420 and NGC 4772 -- to the same comparison star (75 Leo). For N4772, Dreyer notes, "RA 40 seconds too great." This suggests that WH's RA for N4910 might also be too large. In that case, NGC 4845 would be a candidate for WH's object. It is a large galaxy at about the right declination. However, WH describes his nebula as "eF, vL, er, R. 7 or 8 arcmin d[iameter]." N4845 is not quite that large, nor is it round. It is, however, the only reasonable candidate, so I've adopted the identity, though with a query. ===== NGC 4912, 4913, 4914, 4916. Of these galaxies, only one -- NGC 4914 -- is easily identified. That one was found by WH and reobserved by JH; neither found any other nebulae in the area. The other three were seen only once by Lord Rosse, in 1865. He has a sketch showing their relationship with the surrounding star field, so it ought to be easy to identify them. His sketch, however, bears no relationship to the sky around NGC 4914, so it seems likely that he misidentified the main galaxy. Dreyer took this possibility into account by questioning the identification of the main galaxy in the descriptions of N4912, 4913, and 4916. A search of the four POSS1 fields around N4914 also turned up nothing that matches the sketch. Another possibility is that LdR made a 10 deg error in his position, and actually observed several galaxies in the Coma Cluster. But that is about 10 deg 25+- arcmin south, and there are no galaxies/stars in the cluster area that match his sketch. One hour errors are also possible, but I've not yet looked closely at those. The next thing to do will be to look into the lists of nebulae that Lord Rosse had at his disposal at the time (e.g. JH's 1833 observations, the GC, d'Arrest, Auwers) to see if any objects listed near NGC 4914 might be the one that he observed. Since the pattern in his sketch is clear (3 of the objects in a north-south line with a 4th following the southern most), it should jump out at us when we see it. I hope. Wolf claimed to have found and measured NGC 4912 and NGC 4916 on his plate with the IC objects from his fifth list. The object he took as N4912, however, is a star, and his N4916 is a defect (which he did not mark) on the plate. There is nothing in its position on POSS1. ===== NGC 4913 is probably lost. See NGC 4912. ===== NGC 4914. See NGC 4912. ===== NGC 4916 is probably lost. See NGC 4912. ===== NGC 4920 = IC 4134, which see. ===== NGC 4933. This has two components, the brighter one to the northeast. Bigourdan misidentified his comparison star one of the two nights he observed this, so the two components have IC numbers, I4173 and I4176, as well. The misidentified star led Bigourdan to believe that he had found a third "nova" in the field, too. See IC 4134 = NGC 4920 for the details. ===== NGC 4937 is a small asterism of 6 or 7 stars about 2 arcmin northwest of NGC 4940. Both were found by JH who adds a note to the description of N4937 not copied into GC or NGC: "... a * 7m, just at northern edge of field." The star is there, and JH's relative position of the two -- though not exact -- is nevertheless close enough to insure the identity. ===== NGC 4940. See NGC 4937. ===== NGC 4941. See NGC 3679. ===== NGC 4942 may also be IC 4136, which see. ===== NGC 4948 may also be IC 4156. See IC 4136 for the story. ===== NGC 4952 = NGC 4962, which see. ===== NGC 4954 = NGC 4972, which see. ===== NGC 4960 is probably NGC 4961 with a 15 arcmin error in the declination. D'A saw N4960 only once, on a night when he did not record N4961 (he observed that on four other nights). The descriptions and RA's match, too. D'A also leaves us a brief note: "Nebula indubie visa, etiamsi locus confirmatione adhuc indigebit." This seems to be saying that while the nebula was certainly seen, there could be some doubt about its position. Since there is nothing else obvious nearby that might be N4960, I'm going with N4961 for the time being. ===== NGC 4961. See NGC 4960. ===== NGC 4962 = NGC 4952. Dreyer was skeptical about NGC 4962, the first of two nebulae that WH found southeast of 13 CVn (= 37 Com). The second is NGC 4966 which WH noted as "Just nf a * 8 or 9 m." This comment allowed both JH in GC and Dreyer in NGC to correctly assign N4966 = h1531 to WH's observation of III 304. But JH has no observation of the preceding nebula, III 303, and Max Wolf could not find it on a Heidelberg plate -- hence Dreyer's note in the Scientific Papers. (Dreyer also notes here some of Max Wolf's speculation on the identity of N4962, but dismisses two of Wolf's suggested identifications on the basis of WH's relative positions, and a third by noting that a 1 degree error in declination would have put the object beyond the limits of WH's sweep.) Given that WH's RA for N4966 is about half a minute off, and that his Dec is also off (but only by two minutes, within WH's standard deviation), can such an offset be used to identify an object that might be N4962? The answer is "Yes," if we are willing to accept that WH's position for it has yet another 30 seconds of RA error. The total RA error of 1 minute, combined with the 2 arcmin Dec offset, point right at NGC 4952. WH's similar descriptions are consistent with the similar magnitudes and sizes for the galaxies, and though he also found N4952, it was during a sweep nearly a month later. ===== NGC 4966. See NGC 4962 = NGC 4952. ===== NGC 4967, NGC 4973 = IC 847, and NGC 4974. Discovered by William Herschel on the night of 14 April 1789, these are presumably the brightest in the group of six or seven galaxies in the area. Herschel's positions, though, are roughly a minute of time too large, and he gives only one position for N4973 and N4974. Dreyer recognized the problem with the positions in this sweep (921) and another (1001) which, unfortunately, did not cover these objects. In a note to WH's second catalogue, Dreyer gives "modern" positions from JH (N4967), Rumker (N4973 and 4974), and Howe (N4973). If we accept these positions (and I'm inclined to as they refer to the brightest three galaxies in the group, and do not disagree with WH's relative positions of N4967 and N4973/4), then WH's description of the relative positions of N4973 and N4974 needs to be changed. He claims that his "place is that of the 2nd, the other is 3' or 4' south-preceding." This should read "... 3' or 4' north- preceding." CGCG, MCG, and RNGC all have the identifications of N4973 and N4974 garbled. (MCG, in addition, gets the identification of IC 847 wrong; it is actually the same galaxy as N4973 if we trust Swift's position.) Here are the correct identifications: N4973 = I847 = CGCG 1303.4+5357 = CGCG 270-049 = CGCG 271-005 = MCG +09-22-006 and N4974 = CGCG 1303.8+5356 = CGCG 270-051 = CGCG 271-007 = MCG +09-22-009 ===== NGC 4969. See NGC 4740. ===== NGC 4970 = IC 4196, which see. ===== NGC 4972 = NGC 4954. WH has only one observation of this, and Dreyer has this to say in the Scientific Papers: "In the sweep (1064), the observation of I. 274 [= NGC 4648, to which WH refers N4972 in his table] seems to be inaccurate, but III. 937 [= N4972] is between two well-determined stars (Kasan 2331 and 2388)." Dreyer goes on to work out the position of N4972, and it turns out to be the same -- within the errors -- as that for N4954 (observed by JH). Neither WH nor JH saw more than one nebula in the area. This verified JH's speculation in GC (copied verbatim into NGC) that N4954 and N4972 could be the same object, and Dreyer commented in the 1912 Monthly Notices list, "4972 to be struck out (= 4954)." ===== NGC 4973 = IC 847, which see. Also see NGC 4967. ===== NGC 4974. See NGC 4967. ===== NGC 4979 = IC 4198, which see. ===== NGC 4982 is probably the asterism of four stars just southwest of the NGC position. Though Dreyer credits this to Tempel's fifth paper, I can find no mention of the object there (still to be done is a search through the other papers to see if it occurs there). Until we can track down the original observation, though, the identification has to be taken as uncertain. ===== NGC 4989. See NGC 3679. ===== NGC 4993 = NGC 4994. I do not know where JH's incorrect declination for this observation of N4494 came from, but it is 50 arcmin too far north (his father got the right position for the galaxy). Whatever happened, JH's observation fits exactly in RA and in its description of the galaxy, so I am confident of the identity. There is nothing at JH's position. LEDA has picked up a galaxy too faint and small for JH to have seen, and it is well off his position by non-digit amounts (21 seconds of time and 4.3 arcmin). ===== NGC 4995. See IC 4136. ===== NGC 5003 is CGCG 217-013. The NGC position is 2 minutes of time and 2 degrees off. The RA error comes from WH who commented (copied into the Scientific Papers by Dreyer), "[Minute of time] forgot, but is 5, 6, or 7." Dreyer assumed "5," but the actual offset is closer to "7." There is a systematic offset in the other RAs that night of about -20s; corrected for that, the RA is close to the CGCG galaxy. The Dec error originates in GC, or perhaps in CH's reduction of WH's data. Auwers has the correct declination, but JH either did not catch the difference, or made a transcription error. Another systematic error in Dec of +3' in WH's positions that night leads us closer to the correct Dec. Personal note: this is a particularly important object for me as it was one of the first NGC puzzles that I solved by reference to an "original" publication, in this case, WH's Scientific Papers. I had been aware of the problem presented by this number since I ran across it in RC1 in the mid-60s. The RC1 solution -- adopted from earlier astronomers at Lick and Mt. Wilson -- "pick the nearest galaxy and give it the number," did not appeal to my aesthetic sense: Which galaxy had Herschel actually seen? The clue came when I found a copy of the Scientific Papers in the early or mid 1970s in the Astronomy Department's Peridier Library at the University of Texas at Austin. I found the entry for NGC 5003, and by re-reducing WH's observation and following up on his comment about the forgotten minute of time, I found the right galaxy. That experience convinced me of the value of the historical literature in this work, so I became an amateur historian as well as a professional galaxy cataloguer. ===== NGC 5008 = IC 4381. D'A's RA is one hour too small, and his note that the neighboring 10th magnitude star is north is wrong -- the star is actually south, but very nearly at his offsets, 1.1 seconds preceding, 95 arcsec south. The actual offsets are 1.3 seconds and 86 arcsec. The galaxy (and a companion) was rediscovered by Javelle nearly half a century later. His position is correct. ===== NGC 5036 is clearly identified by Leavenworth's sketch. His position is also pretty good for a change. See also NGC 5039, a neighboring galaxy shown in the same sketch. ===== NGC 5039. Here is one case where Leavenworth's position is actually pretty good (well, statistics suggests that he might get one close once in a while). It is not only just a second of time off in RA and 30 arcsec in Dec, but his sketch clearly shows it in relation to NGC 5036 and several field stars. Thus, the identification is secure, and LEDA's choice of a much fainter double galaxy a few arcmin southwest is clearly wrong. ===== NGC 5043. JH's RA is apparently 30 seconds too large as a cluster matching his description ("Cluster VIII, oblong; 10' x 7', of loose sc sts 11 m") is centered west of his position. Though I make the cluster a bit larger (14 arcmin by 8 arcmin), I have no doubt that this is JH's object. ===== NGC 5045 may be NGC 5155. JH describes this as "A great cluster, or a surprisingly rich portion of the milky way. It contains 34 stars 11m, and perhaps 150 or 200 more of less magnitudes in the field." There is nothing at his position matching this description, but 10 minutes of time following is a large Milky Way star cloud, nearly a degree across, that might well have been seen by JH. He picked this up in the same sweep as NGC 5155 (which see), so I'm not convinced that he in fact made a 10 minute error. However, unless another more compelling idea comes up, I'm at least going to list this identity. ===== NGC 5060. See IC 872. ===== NGC 5066 = NGC 5069, which see. ===== NGC 5067 is a double star just 30 arcsec north of Marth's position. He found this and NGC 5066 on the same night in 1864. His position difference between the two (6 arcmin) is close to what we see on the sky today (5.3 arcmin), and the two stars match his description very well. ===== NGC 5069 = NGC 5066. N5069 is another of Ormond Stone's discoveries with the Leander-McCormick 26-inch refractor. His position, like those of many of the other nebulae found there, is too far east in RA, but approximately correct in Dec. This, and his appropriate description, gives me considerable confidence in the identity with N5066. ===== NGC 5070 = NGC 5072. This is in a relatively scattered group of at least six galaxies. The problem object, N5070, was discovered by Swift in June of 1886. Swift's position is, not unusually, rather poor and points to nothing at all. His description is telling, however: "eeF; eS; vF * v close; looks like a D * at first; another nr; 6 in field, [N5072, N5076, N5077, N5079, N5088]." The only galaxy in the area that matches this is N5072 (it has a star superposed on the faint corona near the overexposed nucleus), so it looks like Steve Gottlieb's suggestion is correct: Swift and d'Arrest saw the same object. Given this, the RC3 (and RNGC) number should read "N5072 = N5070." Swift also claimed to have found at least two other nebulae in this area. See IC 884 for that story. ===== NGC 5072 = NGC 5070, which see. ===== NGC 5076. See NGC 5077 and NGC 5070 = NGC 5072. ===== NGC 5077 area. The Herschels observed the triplet, N5076-77-79 whose identities are not in doubt. Lord Rosse found N5072 and N5088, as did d'Arrest. There is some confusion in their observations concerning stars near N5072: both Howe and Swift comment that the object at first looks like a double star, with the nebula about 15 arcsec nf the star. But there is also another star about 1.7 arcmin nf the nebula; this was seen by Howe and Bigourdan (who, oddly, did not mention the star sp). It is possible that Lord Rosse's observers saw both, but on different nights, and that d'Arrest missed the sp star, just as Bigourdan did. Swift notes 6 nebulae in the area. He probably also saw the one labeled RNGC 5070 (it's possible that he saw the otherwise unnoticed object np N5088; this is brighter than RN5070), but it is clear that his description is for N5072. So, the obvious conclusion for these two is that N5072 = N5070 (not = RN5070) which is the galaxy 15 arcsec north-following the star seen by Howe and Swift. There is a bit more discussion under NGC 5070. ===== NGC 5079. See NGC 5077 and NGC 5070 = NGC 5072. ===== NGC 5086 is a double star at Herschel's position. He saw the other three objects in the group on two nights, but only recorded this one once. His description makes it the faintest and smallest of the group. ===== NGC 5088. See NGC 5077 and NGC 5070 = NGC 5072. ===== NGC 5096. See NGC 5098. ===== NGC 5098. There are two galaxies here, less than an arcminute apart, of virtually identical brightness. Which one did John Herschel see? His position falls just between the two objects, and he describes his object as "Faint, small, between two stars, the north-following of two" (the south-preceding is NGC 5096, actually a triple object, about 3.5 arcmin away). Noting the object as "between two stars" seems to point to the preceding of the pair, as the nearby stars apparently bracket this object rather better than the following one. But, the stars are far enough away that JH's comment could apply to either object. Later observations don't help much. For example, when Bigourdan measured N5098 in the 1890's, he picked up the following galaxy, noting the preceding as a neighboring "star." So, the question remains: which object is NGC 5098? For the time being, unable to provide a definitive answer, I list both objects. ===== NGC 5100 may be NGC 5106, which see. ===== NGC 5106 is probably NGC 5100. But there are some problems remaining. Here is the story: WH saw the nebula on just one night, and recorded only the right ascension, not the north polar distance. The GC and NGC note the polar distance as "v doubtful." The NGC carries a brief note: "Not found by Tempel (A.N. 2522); at least there was no 2nd class nebula near the place." Dreyer has a longer note in his edition of WH's complete papers: "Sw. 108. 'A vS and F neb sp 59 Virginis [= SAO 119847]. Its A.R. is about 13h 06 1/4m. While I looked into the finder to determine its situation, I lost it, but shall endeavour to find it another night.' The transit is given as 13h 10m, that of 31 Bootis (Sweep 111) as 14h 30 1/4m. It is probably = Marth 255 (NGC 5100), 35s p, 30' n of the assumed place of II. 22; no neb in H's place." In his NGC corrections based on the WH edition, Dreyer simply says, "II.22 must be = 5100." There is no problem with NGC 5100. Marth's position is very close to Bigourdan's which is, in turn, very close to the GSC's. It has a small companion which is mentioned in the CGCG, MCG, and UGC, though was apparently not seen by Marth or Bigourdan. And N5100 is indeed 35s p, and 30' n of the NGC position. All this supports Dreyer's contention of the equality of the two NGC numbers. However, JH makes no mention of how he determined the polar distance which he used in GC for N5106 (Dreyer simply copied the PD into NGC). If we assume that JH used the PD of 31 Bootis for II.22, then the GC/NGC PD is more than 30 arcmin in error -- it should read 81 18.1 rather than the 80 46.5 it does. Also, regardless of the PD, WH's RA places II.22 south-following 59 Virginis, not south-preceding as he states. So, questions linger around this object. Unless WH's or JH's unpublished notes can shed some light on this, we have to regard the identity of N5106 with N5100 as provisional. ===== NGC 5109 = NGC 5113. Both objects were found by William Herschel, N5109 = H II 826 on 17 March 1790, and N5113 = H III 808 eleven months earlier on 24 April 1789. His descriptions are very nearly the same: "F, S, E" and "cF, S, E." John Herschel lists only one galaxy here (h1588) which he identifies as H II 826 (= N5109), in spite of the fact that his father's position for N5109 is a full minute of time and nearly two arcmin off, while that for N5113 is only 10 seconds of time and just over one arcmin off. Sir John's description "vF, pmE, 30sec" is also closer to his father's "cF" for N5113 than it is to the "F" for N5109. Dreyer followed Sir John's lead here, but added a note to the NGC description: "perhaps = N5109." He reinforced this in his 1912 MN paper and collection of Sir William's papers, and suggested that the number N5113 be discarded. Reinmuth agreed, and accepted the equality of the two numbers. CGCG, however, located a small galaxy six arcmin north of the NGC position for N5113, and assigned the number to that galaxy. UGC followed along. Given the data above, and the fact that this galaxy is 1.6 magnitudes fainter than the brighter one, this identification is certainly incorrect. So, I have followed Dreyer (1912) in equating the two NGC numbers. ===== NGC 5110 = NGC 5111. The NGC position for N5111 (from the Herschels) is excellent, while that for N5110 from Swift's third list is a little off. But the identity is clinched by Swift's note that the object is "in line with 2 pB stars". The confusion has come from LEDA which incorrectly adopted a much fainter galaxy as N5111. Though this galaxy has stars nearby, they form a line to the north, with the galaxy being well off the line. It is also enough fainter that Swift probably would not have swept it up given the proximity of the brighter object 19 seconds east and six arcmin north. The identity, by the way, was first suggested by Reinmuth in "Die Nebel Herschel." ===== NGC 5111 = NGC 5110, which see. ===== NGC 5113 = NGC 5109, which see. ===== NGC 5118 = IC 4236, which see. ===== NGC 5119. See IC 884. ===== NGC 5122. See IC 884. ===== NGC 5124 = IC 4233, which see. ===== NGC 5126. See IC 4233. ===== NGC 5136 = IC 888, which see. ===== NGC 5155 is a Milky Way star cloud about 1 degree across, with dust lanes and patches splashed over it. I put it a little southwest of JH's position, but his description ("A portion of the Milky Way broken up into clustering masses of astonishing richness. There must be at least 200 or 300 stars in the field, none greater than 10 m.") idenitfies it securely. This same star cloud may also be NGC 5045 (which see), but that was found in the same sweep (number 596 on 16 June 1835). That makes the identity unlikely, but I list it, anyhow. ===== NGC 5160 is a double star very near d'Arrest's position. It was seen as a double star by Tempel (though appeared nebulous on two nights) as well as by Bigourdan, who measured its position. His measurement agrees with mine for both stars, and also -- implicitly -- with the GSC position for the northern. Bigourdan also gave good estimates of the relative magnitudes of the stars, as well as their distance (10 arcsec) and position angle (0 degrees; though on the POSS1, the PA is about 7-8 degrees). Furthermore, d'Arrest notes the 12th magnitude star 28.3 seconds following, 1 arcmin north, of his object. That star is just where he says it is. ===== NGC 5162 = NGC 5174. Swift's RA is 1 minute of time too small. Once that is corrected, his detailed description, "vF, pL, eE [not lE as in the NGC]; an eeF * at each focus of ellipse; B * in field sp; F * nr nf" is an exact match to NGC 5174 (which see). The bright star (WH's comparison star for NGC 5174), the star northeast, and the faint star involved to the south were also noted by JH and (the northeast star) by Dreyer with LdR's 72-inch. ===== NGC 5171 is the brightest galaxy in a curious group. "Curious" because, of the five NGC objects (N5171, N5176, N5177, N5178, and N5179) in it, only four were seen by any one observer. However, since at least two of the three observers were looking for Comet d'Arrest, they clearly picked up the nebulae as afterthoughts. First to go through the group was Hough, then directory of Dearborn Observatory in Chicago, and Burnham, apparently observing with Hough the night of 5 May 1883 on the 18.5-inch refractor. Though the positions are not particularly good, Burnham's offsets to the 8th magnitude star 21 seconds preceding and 58 arcsec south, pins down the nebula he saw as NGC 5171. Dreyer creditted Burnham with the co-discovery of NGC 5179, apparently because of the uncertain position. Hough is credited with NGC 5171, but he describes his object as "Double. Nebula, round, condensed." This could apply to NGC 5171 and its superposed compact companion or star, but it could also apply to NGC 5176 and NGC 5177 which are 2-3 arcmin north-northeast of NGC 5171. Hough's position is not good enough to tell. It also seems odd that he would record the same nebula as new as Burnham, especially given that they were observing on the same night with the same telescope. On 11 May of the same year, Tempel saw NGC 5171, N5178, and N5179 with the 10.5-inch Amici I refractor at Arcetri. He has micrometric positions for the first two, but the third was apparently too far from his comparison star to be measured. Nevertheless, his estimated position for it is good enough to positively identify the galaxy. Finally, on 29 June 1883, Ernst Hartwig, using the 18-inch refractor at Strassburg found and measured four nebulae in the group: N5171, N5176, N5177, and N5179. His positions are very good. So, the observers using the larger telescopes failed to find the faintest of the nebulae, N5178. But it is the southern-most of the five, and has a lower average surface brightness, so may not draw attention to itself as readily as the northern four. ===== NGC 5174 = NGC 5162 (which see) and NGC 5175 are a pair of objects discovered by WH: "Two, mistaken for one; but 240 shewed (sic) them both. cL, vF." JH observed these twice; his description from his first observation (Sweep 120) is correct: "eF, E; involves a star at the south end, and has a star 6 mag 15 arcmin south and a few seconds preceding." His second (Sweep 242) more nearly matches his father's: "vF; two close together, or one E nearly in the meridian. A star 11 mag north." Using LdR's 72-inch, Dreyer also "Found only one neb, vF, vS, stellar, no other neb found. A * 12m about 4 arcmin nf. The ground appeared milky round about." He goes on to comment, "h seems also to have seen but one neb, viz, 1612, his `* 11m n' may be my * 12 m ..." On the sky survey prints, it's clear that the southern of the pair is, as JH noted, a superposed star. Yet CGCG called this a "double" galaxy, and has managed to confuse a lot of modern observers. It is vaguely possible, I suppose, that WH split the galaxy as happened with e.g. NGC 2442 and NGC 2443, and NGC 2903 and NGC 2905. In this case, the second nebula probably would be the faint HII region north-northwest of the nucleus. This was apparently seen by Swift (see his description under the note for NGC 5162). However, the superposed star is considerably brighter, and is the more likely candidate for NGC 5175. ===== NGC 5175 is most likely a star superposed on NGC 5174 (which see for the evidence). ===== NGC 5176. This may perhaps have been seen by Hough as well as by Hartwig. See NGC 5171 for more. ===== NGC 5177. This may perhaps have been seen by Hough as well as by Hartwig. See NGC 5171 for more. ===== NGC 5178. This was not seen by Hartwig, nor by the Dearborn observers -- but was picked up by Tempel with a smaller telescope. See NGC 5171 for more. ===== NGC 5179. See NGC 5171. Dreyer incorrectly credits Burnham with this galaxy -- Burnham's description makes it clear that he saw NGC 5171. This was seen, however, by Tempel and Hartwig. ===== NGC 5189 = IC 4274, which see. ===== NGC 5200 is a double star. Like many other of the "nebulae" found at Harvard in the 1850s (see e.g. NGC 2515, NGC 4582, and NGC 5404), the identity is assured by Coolidge's micrometric measurement. ===== NGC 5208. See NGC 5212. ===== NGC 5209. See NGC 5212. ===== NGC 5212. Seen by John Herschel on only one night, and described simply as "extremely faint," there is nothing in Sir John's position. That position follows a group of galaxies with NGC 5208 and NGC 5209 being the brightest. JH picked these two up during the same sweep in which he saw NGC 5212, as well as in two other sweeps for N5208, one for N5209. In both cases, his positions measured during the other sweeps agree with those from the night in question. So, we do not have a systematic offset to help us here. Steve and Malcolm have suggested three other galaxies that might be Sir John's object. One is CGCG 045-021, 10 arcmin south but 13 seconds of time east of JH's position. CGCG 045-012 is 30 seconds of time west but 6 arcmin north. Finally, my own choice is the one that Malcolm and Steve also favor: CGCG 045-014, 27 seconds of time straight west of JH's position. This is the second brightest of the three, and has the highest surface brightness. Those factors, along with the offset (close enough to 30 seconds, a common error), make it pretty sure that this is the correct galaxy. ===== NGC 5216 and NGC 5218. The MCG identifications are reversed from those by all other observers. There is no apparent reason for this in the NGC itself, and I doubt that Vorontsov or his colleagues consulted JH's 1833 catalogue where there is an identification error. For the record, Sir John makes his h 1635 a "nova" while he incorrectly labels h 1636 as H II 841. Sir William's original observation was of two objects which became H II 841 and H II 842. Sir John got the identifications sorted out for the GC, and the NGC has them exactly correct, too. So, the MCG is the only catalogue which reverses the identifications. All the other modern catalogues are correct in placing N5216 south-preceding N5218. ===== NGC 5217. See IC 897 for a curious footnote to the observations of this galaxy. ===== NGC 5218. See NGC 5216. ===== NGC 5219 = NGC 5244. John Herschel's original position for N5219 is quite uncertain, being given only to a full minute of time in RA and marked +- in Dec. The description exactly matches that for NGC 5244. Furthermore, the two objects were seen in different sweeps. The identity is therefore almost certain. ===== NGC 5240 may be IC 895 (which see), but is probably not. ===== NGC 5242 probably never existed. JH saw it only once, and seemed unsure about its reality. His description reads, "eF, vL; fills the whole field. Strongly suspected; yet a doubt remains." His declination is followed by a double colon which further suggests a problem with the observation. However, under his entry for NGC 4808, seen during the same sweep, he says, "Sky perfectly clear." Also, his measured declination, though marked uncertain, is appropriate for the sweep. Since there are no galaxies in the area matching JH's description (all are too small), nor are there any one hour preceding or following, or within two+- degrees of the nominal declination, this may well be a visual illusion of some sort, perhaps caused by scattered light in his telescope. ===== NGC 5244. See NGC 5219. ===== NGC 5264. See NGC 5298. ===== NGC 5268 is a star at the catalogued position. Included in the Markree Catalogue as a nebula, there is only a hint on the DSS of a very faint galaxy behind the much brighter star. I do not think that it could be seen in the 12.4-inch refractor at Markree, and suspect that the southern declination -- thus, a low altitude in Ireland -- might have played a role in the classification. ===== NGC 5284. There is a Milky Way star cloud, about 30 arcmin by 20 arcmin, centered about 45 seconds of time following JH's position. It also more or less matches his description, so I've adopted the identification. ===== NGC 5292. See NGC 5298. ===== NGC 5298. Steve Gottlieb has suggested that the traditional identification of N5298 with ESO 445- G039 may be wrong. Is it possible, he asks, that ESO 445- G035 is the galaxy that JH saw? His reasoning is that, relative to JH's observation of N5302, N5298's position is closer to G035 than it is to G039. This is probably also the source of the RC1, GHD2, and RNGC identifications: they, too, choose G035. It looks to me like the most likely explanation is a simple +30 second error in JH's RA for N5302, and that his position for N5298 is good. Here is my thinking. JH found 34 nebulae during Sweep 564 on 30 March 1835. Comparing his data for that night with those for the same objects from other nights, he seems to have had about his usual problem rate (5-10 percent) -- missed nebulae that he could have picked up, nebulae refered to nearby objects rather than being measured themselves, etc. Seven of the objects from sweep 564 are in what became ESO/SRC field 445, so I looked at the offsets from the ESO positions in that field. I found, as Steve did, that NGC 5302 is off the modern position by +31.3 seconds of time, and that JH's position for N5298 is +26.0 seconds off if he saw G035 rather than G039. Looking at the offsets for the other nearby objects, though, I don't see any other large offsets: NGC Delta RA Delta Dec 5264 +0.5s -16" 5292 -0.1s +1'08" 5328 -1.7s +17" 5357 -0.6s +15" 5393 -0.4s +19" 5298 +1.0s -40" if = G039 5298 +26.0s +44" if = G035 5302 +31.3s +1'24" If we assume that JH saw G035 and made the same 30 second error in the position of N5298 that he did for N5302, then the offset would be 5298 -5.3s +44" That much larger negative error suggests to me that the "standard" identification is more likely to be correct since there are no other large RA errors in the positions for the five nearby galaxies. On the other hand, N5298 and N5302 are close enough that JH could have seen both in the same field, and could have made the same mistake for each. Steve then says, "I've observed both ESO 445-35 and ESO 445-39 and they appear similar in the eyepiece with perhaps ESO 445-39 a bit brighter. I don't understand, though, how he [JH] would picked up one of these galaxies and not the other." He clearly had problems in this field. He missed the brightest galaxy here (IC 4329), and there are several other galaxies in the cluster that he could have picked up, but didn't. I also did not see anything unusual in his notes about the field, simply descriptions of the nebulae. In contrast, earlier in the same night, he made several comments about the NGC 3308/09/11/etc group in Abell 1060, noting double objects, other objects in the group, and so forth. For the N5298 area, these comments are missing. So, there are some unresolvable problems here. Perhaps this is a case where he fell asleep at the eyepiece. John Stone, his mechanic and observing assistant, is reported to have commented about this happening several times. There are certainly some bright nebulae and doubles in the south that JH should have swept up, but did not. Some additional notes: the magnitudes of G035 and G039 are virtually identical (B = 14.0), and the diameters are not too different, either, so I don't see an easy way to use the data to choose between the two. Again, JH could/should have picked up both, but didn't. So, we're stuck with the ambiguity. In the end, I'm going to put a colon on the N5298 identification, and put G035 in with a question mark. ===== NGC 5299. There is a +30 arcmin error in the GC and NGC declination, but JH's original CGH observation is correct. Once we look in the right spot, we find a large (roughly 25 arcmin across) Milky Way star cloud that matches JH's description. I've adopted the identification. ===== NGC 5302. There is a 30 second error in JH's RA. See NGC 5298 for more. ===== NGC 5309. This was found the night of 27 April 1887 by Edward Swift, Lewis's teenaged son. He calls it "vF, pS, R, between a star and a coarse double star following." There is nothing in the position given in Swift's list, and I do not find reasonable candidates at big digit errors (1 hour in RA, 1 degree in Dec, etc), but there is a possible 10 arcmin digit error (more below). Wolfgang's candidate is probably too faint for either Swift (father or son) to have seen, and the flanking stars are very faint, too. My own candidate, while brighter, is further from Swift's position, though the declination offset (-9 arcmin 10 arcsec) suggests a digit error. The RA offset (+18 sec) is also in line with the other RA offsets of galaxies found that same night by Edward (see NGC 4740 for more on this), so the position at least is suggestive. However, the "coarse double star following" is as much south as east, and is also quite faint. So, I've put question marks on both objects in the position table. ===== NGC 5312. See NGC 5319. ===== NGC 5314. Swift's position is nearly a minute of time off, but the galaxy is clearly identified by the double star 4 arcmin to the south. Swift comments, "... the 2 components of a D* point to it." The "double" star is actually triple, but the third star is faint enough that it would probably be missed by Swift. Swift also mentions "An eF * v close; ...," but I do not see any star "very close" that he could have seen. In particular, the * 27 arcsec south of the galaxy is too faint for Swift's telescope. This, however, is the only unresolved puzzle about the object. ===== NGC 5317 = NGC 5364 with a 5 minute correction to its RA. JH's descriptions of the objects are identical, and he did not record N5364 in the sweep in which he found N5317. Nor did he record N5317 more than once. The identity is pretty sure. ===== NGC 5318. See NGC 5319. ===== NGC 5319. Lord Rosse's sketch and description are exact. They unambiguously point to the faint galaxy north following NGC 5318 as the nova; this is "C" in the sketch. "B" -- NGC 5318 -- is shown as three separate nebulae, all of which exist just where Lord Rosse places them. So, the three galaxies are given suffixes in the order of brightness. The RNGC is incorrect in equating N5319 with N5318b. Note, too, that Holmberg only saw one of the companions on the Heidelberg plates that he used for his 1937 double galaxy study. Lord Rosse's sketch also shows NGC 5312 ("A"), but curiously, not NGC 5321 which is actually closer to N5318 than is N5312. This might suggest that there is a problem with N5321's identification, too, but John Herschel's position and description closely match the galaxy. ===== NGC 5321. See NGC 5319. ===== NGC 5328. See NGC 5298. ===== NGC 5334 = IC 4338, which see. ===== NGC 5344. The NGC RA -- but not Swift's original RA -- is a minute of time too small. Nevertheless, the galaxy is far enough north that none of the cataloguers have had any trouble assigning the number to the right object. ===== NGC 5357. See NGC 5298 and IC 953. ===== NGC 5360 is probably IC 958, which see. ===== NGC 5364 = NGC 5317, which see. Also see IC 958. ===== NGC 5371 probably also carries the designation NGC 5390, which see. ===== NGC 5375 = NGC 5396, which see. ===== NGC 5385 is an asterism of about a dozen stars scattered over an area about five by three arcmin. It is unlikely to be a real cluster, but the group is eyecatching, nonetheless. JH's position and description, "A cluster of 11 stars 11m, and 2 of 15m," is accurate. ===== NGC 5390 is probably a reobservation of NGC 5371. JH saw the objects in different sweeps, and marked the RA and Dec of N5390 uncertain. His description of N5390, "F, L, vgbM; has a * 9m, nf, 4 arcmin dist.," would match N5371 but for one detail: the star is only 2 arcmin distant, and there is another star, nearly as bright, 5 arcmin north-northeast. Unfortunately, he did not attach a description to his correct position for N5371, so the identity is not absolutely sure. But it is a suggestion from Reinmuth, carried over by Carlson, so has been in the literature for some time. ===== NGC 5391 is probably not MCG +08-25-054 though taken as such by RNGC and Wolfgang Steinicke. It is the faintest of the candidates in the area. The others -- in order of decreasing brightness -- are NGC 5439, UGC 8876, and CGCG 246-029. However, Swift saw a star "very close" to the object. None of the galaxies has stars nearby that could be described that way, and the positions are well off Swift's nominal position. So, this object is probably lost. ===== NGC 5393. See NGC 5298. ===== NGC 5396 = NGC 5375. JH searched for his father's nebula (III 125) at WH's position, but could find only NGC 5375 (h 1771) in the area. Dreyer notes "In the sweep, there is before III 125 a * 8 mag 2deg 49min more north than III 125, no transit ..." The star is there, about 30 seconds preceding. So, we can be pretty confident about the identity. Curiously, JH equated the two nebulae in his 1833 catalogue, but separated them for GC. This is probably just caution on his part, given his comment in the 1833 list, "If this be III 125, my Father's place is much out in RA." ===== NGC 5404. Found by Sidney Coolidge, one of the early Harvard observers, this is a double star. Coolidge gave an accurate position for the object which pinpoints it. Remarkably, nearly all of the so-called "nebulae" listed in the discovery paper (in AN 1453), are simply stars or double stars. I wonder if the Harvard telescope was put to the discovery and observation of nebulae only on less than perfect nights. The other possibility (that the telescope was optically poor or was poorly aligned) is too horrible to contemplate. ===== NGC 5415. Swift's position is between two faint galaxies, but he notes that his nebula forms a triangle with two faint stars nearby. This makes his object the preceding and brighter of the two. ===== NGC 5426. See NGC 5428. ===== NGC 5427. See NGC 5428. ===== NGC 5428, NGC 5429, NGC 5432, and NGC 5435 are multiple stars (N5432 is a triple, the others double) north and east of the interacting pair NGC 5426 and NGC 5427. As with many other of the "nebulae" which were found by Tempel near brighter nebulae, these can be identified by his published descriptions, or by the positions that he later sent to Dreyer. In this case, the identities of N5432 and N5435 are clear from the descriptions and positions, N5428 is pretty clear from the description ("... in line with N5426 and N5427"), and N5429 merely probable from its similarity to the others. ===== NGC 5429 is a double star. See NGC 5428. ===== NGC 5432 is a triple star. See NGC 5428. ===== NGC 5435 is a double star. See NGC 5428. ===== NGC 5436 is one of a line of three nebulae found by Temple (N5437 = I4365 and 5438 are the others). It's likely that WH saw at least one of these objects, the northern-most and brightest of the group, N5438; see N5446 for more on this. Except for N5438, Bigourdan mangled the names here; he mistook a nearby star as a nebula as well. So, N5437 has ended up with "IC 4365" (which see) on it in addition to the NGC number. ===== NGC 5437 = IC 4365, which see. ===== NGC 5438. See NGC 5436 and NGC 5446. ===== NGC 5439. See NGC 5391. ===== NGC 5446 is probably identical to NGC 5438. This is another of WH's earlier discoveries (19 March 1784). Many of the nebulae found in the spring of 1784 have larger position errors than later observations. In this case, the difference in RA is 30 seconds, and the Dec's are close. The descriptions are similar enough to make the identity almost certain. ===== NGC 5447, 5449, 5450, 5451, 5453, 5455, 5458, 5461, 5462, and NGC 5471 are HII regions and/or star clouds in M101. Most were discovered by LdR, though WH found three of the brightest, and d'Arrest noticed the outlier, N5471. Unfortunately, only the identifications of WH's and d'A's objects are unambiguous. The positions of the others turn out to have been determined by JH for GC. He used the sketch of M101 that appeared in LdR's 1861 paper to estimate offsets from stars with known positions. This must have been a hurried chore, since his resulting positions for the knots are not very good. Without additional observations, Dreyer simply adopted JH's GC positions. There has thus been some confusion over the identifications of the objects found by LdR. Only in two cases, N5461 and N5462 (both found by WH), did LdR provide offsets from a nearby star. D'A's object, N5471, not only has a good position, but is isolated enough from the main body of the galaxy that its identification is also certain. To identify the other objects, I have gone back to the published 1861 sketch where they are clearly shown. I have easily identified the knots which JH saw in the same sketch. With those identifications in hand, I remeasured the positions, and have also been able to sort out most of the identifications used in earlier papers on M101. The correct identifications and new positions are in the main Table. ===== NGC 5449. See NGC 5447. ===== NGC 5450. See NGC 5447. ===== NGC 5451. See NGC 5447. ===== NGC 5453. See NGC 5447. ===== NGC 5455. See NGC 5447. ===== NGC 5457 = Messier 101, and is probably also Messier 102. The identification with M102 is controversial, but rests on a letter that Mechain (who discovered M102) wrote to Bernoulli, then the editor of the Berliner Jahrbuch, claiming that the object is nothing more than a reobservation of M101. This letter was published in 1947 by Helen Sawyer, and is usually taken as "proof" of the identity. However, a case can be made that M102 is actually NGC 5866 (which see). I believe that the evidence points to NGC 5457, but as I noted, this is still controversial. ===== NGC 5458. See NGC 5447. ===== NGC 5461. See NGC 5447. ===== NGC 5462. See NGC 5447. ===== NGC 5463. Though there is no problem with the identity of this object, the NGC position, adopted from two micrometric observation by Tempel (published in his 8th list) is 16 seconds west of the true position. I've not been able to find why Tempel's reduced position is wrong (even if he used the BD position for his comparison star, his position would only be 1-2 seconds of time off), but re-reducing his offsets using the GSC position for his comparison star (BD +10 2619) leads to a position much closer to the modern position. However, Tempel's position is still 12-14 arcsec off, further than I would have expected. Either the comparison star has a large proper motion, or Tempel's measurements are somehow in error. Other micrometric positions of his that I've re-reduced have had larger-than-expected offsets from modern positions, so I suspect that his measurements simply have larger standard deviations than would be normal for state-of-the-art work in the mid-1880s. ===== NGC 5465 and NGC 5467 = IC 973 are both stars southwest of NGC 5468. Tempel does not give positions for either in his fifth list, so the NGC positions are probably from private communications to Dreyer. While looking at the field, Bigourdan found and measured stars near the NGC positions. It is those stars that I've taken to be Tempel's "nebulae" -- both share a common offset of +30 arcsec from Tempel's positions, so seem likely to be the objects that Tempel saw. Not able to easily see Tempel's nebulae in the field, Bigourdan nevertheless turned up two new "nebulae" (IC 973 and IC 974, which see) but later realized that one of them (IC 973) was identical to the object he had taken for NGC 5467. By that time, however, the first IC had been published, and included Bigourdan's "novae" from his first Comptes Rendus list of discoveries. So, the star has an IC number as well as an NGC number. ===== NGC 5467 = IC 973 is a star. See NGC 5465. ===== NGC 5468. See NGC 5465 and IC 974. ===== NGC 5469 may be CGCG 074-136. [There has been considerable confusion about this object, so I'm scratching my original note and starting over.] Tempel does not list this object in his table of novae in his 8th list, but instead describes it in the text. Here is the full account, translated by Wolfgang Steinicke: "III 59 [= NGC 5482] is 9s preceeding, 2 1/2' south of a faint star 11m; the nebula is small and has in its center a faint star with very little nebular matter. Following the star 11m, there is at 15s, parallel to it [the star or N5482?] a nice round nebula, III, without a faint star [in the center]. This nebula is also new." Tempel's text seems to suggest that his new nebula follows the 11th magnitude star by 15 seconds, but Wolfgang questions this, suggesting that it may be NGC 5482 which is on the parallel. There is, in any case, no group of two galaxies and a star in the area of NGC 5482 that could possibly match Tempel's description. He has certainly misidentified NGC 5482. Nor is there anything at the NGC position for N5469 (the position probably comes from one of Tempel's letters to Dreyer). Furthermore, NGC 5482 (which is CGCG 074-115; WH's position is too close to that galaxy for any doubt) is another 2.5 minutes of time on east, and half a degree south. So, it cannot be the nebula that Tempel observed: the NGC position is at odds with Tempel's text. Given Tempel's confusion in this area (see e.g. NGC 5562, also well off the nominal position), I suspect that he mistook CGCG 074-134 as NGC 5482. It has a star of about the right magnitude, 7.7 seconds following and 3.6 arcmin north, not unreasonably far off Tempel's estimates of 9 sec and 2.5 arcmin. CGCG 074-136 is 17.1 sec following CGCG 074-134, and 50 arcsec south, again not unreasonably off Tempel's description of the nova being 15 seconds following and on the parallel. I'm not convinced that this is the correct solution, but there is nothing else in the area that comes as close to matching. So, for now, I'm putting NGC 5469 on CGCG 074-136 with a question mark. ===== NGC 5471. See NGC 5447. ===== NGC 5472 is a galaxy just where LdR's and Tempel's observations puts it. However, it was not seen by Bigourdan which may have contributed to his confusion about the field around NGC 5468 (see NGC 5465 and IC 974 for more). ===== NGC 5482. See NGC 5469. ===== NGC 5488 = IC 4375. JH's position in the CGH Observations is crude (14 01+-, 122 50+- for 1830.0), yet he gave it in GC to his usual precision of 0.1 seconds and 0.1 arcseconds. He did list the number of observations as "1::", but this did not make it to the NGC. Dreyer did his usual rounding, too, so the NGC position is apparently a nomally accurate one of one or two arcminutes. The only reason we can be fairly sure about the identification is JH's note "near and to the north of a * 8 m." The star is there, and Stewart also comments on it: "cB,[sic] * sp" (I think the comma is a typo). In any event, there is nothing at JH's position, and the identity with the IC object is pretty sure. ===== NGC 5494 appears in Swift's big 11th AN list of new nebulae. Dreyer caught this, so Swift's rediscovery was not given an IC number. See IC 2595 for more about the nebulae that Swift found on the night of 22 February 1898. ===== NGC 5502 = NGC 5503. These were found by Edward and Lewis Swift, son and father, on 9 and 11 May 1885, respectively. Their descriptions of the galaxy are nearly the same, and the identity is clinched because both father and son carefully describe the surrounding star field (for NGC 5502, the description is "between two stars, one a wide double," while for N5503, it reads "forms with two stars a right triangle"). Neither position is very good, but that for N5503 is closer to the true position. I suspect that the difference in position and description of the stars was enough to convince both of the Swifts -- and Dreyer, too -- that the observations refered to different nebulae. ===== NGC 5503. See NGC 5502. ===== NGC 5504. See IC 4383. ===== NGC 5509 = CGCG 133-010. Bigourdan's declination, as published in his first list of new nebulae in Comptes Rendus, is 16.3 arcmin off the position derived from his micrometric offsets. This may be a simple mistake, or it could be the result of confusion over his comparison star. He lists it twice (once for each of the nights he observed N5509), but at different magnitudes (8.5 and 11.5) and declination offsets from BD +21 2625 (-19 arcmin and -17.2 arcmin). GSC has m = 11.6 from two measurements with the offset being -18 arcmin. Whatever the cause of the error, the correct identity is clear when the reductions are redone using the modern position for the comparison star. ===== NGC 5511 is probably CGCG 074-141, but might possibly be CGCG 074-142. The southeastern galaxy is a low surface brightness late-type spiral, while the western object is an S0 of normal surface brightness. The S0, though fainter in total magnitude, is more likely to be seen in a long-focus 18.5-inch refractor (Hough's telescope at Dearborn Observatory, the same Clark refractor used by Safford nearly two decades earlier). However, Hough's published description reads, "Small, very faint. * 10m, * 10m [sic] preceding." This is a typographical error of some sort. There is no star of 10th magnitude preceding the galaxy (I also checked the possibility that a star might be 10 minutes of time or 10 arcmin preceding, but none are in either place). The only fairly bright star in the area is an 11th magnitude double star following CGCG 074-141 by 14.2 seconds. This casts doubt on the identity with either CGCG galaxy, but Hough's position precesses to within 2 arcmin of the galaxies. Thus, I'm going to give the confused description fairly low weight. Tempel certainly did not see CGCG 074-142. His description of Hough's nebula reads (in a translation by Wolfgang Steinicke): "I also searched for the last of Hough's nebulae at 14h 07.5m +9d 10.0' and found at this place a faint star of 12m with very little nebular matter." I think this is a description of the double star following the galaxies. The fainter star is merged with the image of the brighter, and is southwest. It probably lent just a trace of the appearance of nebulosity to the brighter star as Tempel observed it. ===== NGC 5519 is probably also NGC 5570, which see. ===== NGC 5524 is probably the double star at the position noted in the Table. See NGC 5527 for the discussion. ===== NGC 5527 is probably the object called "NGC 5524" by virtually everybody. Found by LdR on 19 April 1855, it has just the one observation recorded under LdR's entry for NGC 5529. That observation reads, "[NGC 5529], long narrow ray with a S, R, vF neb sf; another vF about 15' np [5529]; and another eeF about 6' p and 1' n of this last." Dreyer adds the note, "The positions given in the G.C. for 2 R. novae, [5524] and [5527], are not in accordance with this." In the observation, it's clear that there are four nebulae in the field. One of these, the "S, R, vF neb sf" is neither in GC nor NGC (it is one of several nebulae known to Dreyer that he did not include in NGC). The other three nebulae, N5524, N5527, and N5529 are arranged along a curve according to LdR's description. It is also clear that the new objects can have only approximate positions as no micrometric positions for them were measured at Birr Castle. An additional problem concerns the adopted positions and descriptions. The positions are by JH for GC and, as Dreyer noted, do not correspond with the description given by LdR. Dreyer switched the positions for NGC, but still got LdR's descriptions of brightness reversed -- the faintest object is clearly the western most of the objects, i.e. NGC 5524. Given all this, it is reasonable to suppose that the brightest object northwest of NGC 5529 is NGC 5527, and that a still fainter object is west- northwest of it. This makes N5527 = CGCG 191-067 (it is 17.2 arcmin from N5529), but leaves the position for NGC 5524 vacant. The object was taken to be a star by Carlson, and was noted in MCG as "Not found." There is a very faint galaxy in the right direction from N5527 that LdR might have seen, but it is almost 13 arcmin away, not 6+ arcmin as in the observation. There is also a somewhat brighter triple star on to the northwest of N5527 (14 11 42.2, +36 43 48; B1950.0, mean of the three DSS positions), but it is 9.5 arcmin from the galaxy, and is probably too bright to be called "eeF." The stars are also pretty well separated: the northern star is 30 arcsec away from the southern. The final possibility, the one I've adopted, is the double star 7.9 arcmin west-southwest of N5527. This is a reasonable choice if LdR's description reads "... another eeF about 6' p and 1' s ...." The second star of this pair is much fainter than the brighter, but may have added just a hint of nebulosity to the object. While this identity is a (reasonable) guess, it is still the best of the available options. ===== NGC 5529. See NGC 5527. ===== NGC 5541. See IC 4394. ===== NGC 5547. See IC 4404. ===== NGC 5552 = NGC 5558, which see. ===== NGC 5554 = NGC 5564. See NGC 5558. ===== NGC 5558 = NGC 5552, and NGC 5564 = NGC 5554. Swift has an accurate description of the star field near these two galaxies. For the first, he notes "2 F st. point to it," and for the second "sf of 2; a * midway between them." His positions, though, are a minute of time too far east, putting both of these near NGC 5563. This led Dreyer to suggest that the two are both equal to N5563, found by Marth, as were N5552 and N5554. In this case, Marth's positions are quite good enough for positive identification, as are Swift's descriptions (but see NGC 5565). ===== NGC 5561. LEDA took UGC 9151 as Swift's object despite the fact that it is further off his position, is fainter with a much lower surface brightness, and has no "F * nr west" as Swift notes. Swift's object is a high surface brightness compact galaxy, perhaps one of the blue irregulars. In any event, he got it pinned down very well, while LEDA -- misled by the big splashy dwarf spiral 3.5 arcmin southwest -- got it wrong. ===== NGC 5562 is CGCG 075-011, even though it is nearly 20 arcmin north of Tempel's nominal position. Here is his description (translated by Wolfgang Steinicke): "Two degrees north of it [NGC 5511], I found on June 28th a new nebula and have seen it several times. At this time I can specify its position only from Argelander's atlas [the BD]: 14h 13m Os +10d 39'. It is small, III; 3' south-preceding the nebula is a star 11m, and 3s following is a very faint star." Both stars are just where Tempel puts them, and the description of the nebula as small and very faint (WH's class III) is correct. The actual distance north of NGC 5511 (which see) is closer to 1.5 degrees rather than 2 as Tempel states. ===== NGC 5563. See NGC 5558 = NGC 5552, and NGC 5565. ===== NGC 5564 = NGC 5554. See NGC 5558 = NGC 5552, and NGC 5565. ===== NGC 5565 -- is this a star? Swift claims this is just 30 arcsec south of NGC 5564, but there is nothing there. Just a bit further on to the southeast, though, is a star at V = 15.5. Swift could just possibly have seen this, and he may have thought it a third nebula since there are two others near (see NGC 5558). However, he claims to have found all three objects on the same night. So, I find it curious that he describes the star field around the other two carefully, and mentions in their descriptions "np of 2" and "sf of 2" with only a casual reference to this object "two others nr" in his description of NGC 5558 = NGC 5552. This leaves open the possibility that N5565 is the same as N5563, about a minute of time following. The declinations of N5565 and N5563, however, are four arcmin different, while the declinations of the other two nebulae that Swift found on this night are very good. The most likely hypothesis remains that Swift saw a star, but we cannot now be sure. ===== NGC 5567. See NGC 5579. ===== NGC 5568. See NGC 5579. ===== NGC 5570 is probably WH's first observation of NGC 5519. His description reads, "vF, forming an arch with 3 sts." NGC 5519 indeed forms an arch with two stars west and southwest, and a third is superposed on the galaxy. WH's observation puts N5570 21m 15s p, 0d 34' s of 31 Bootis. This is 6 minutes of time off the position of N5519. I think that the "21m" is a transcription error and should read "27m." In that case, the RA as well as the Dec and the description would match N5519. ===== NGC 5571 is a group of 4 stars. Bigourdan's second observation of it describes it exactly, though his first -- in the NGC -- attributes some nebulosity to it that is not there. RNGC incorrectly equates it to NGC 5579. ===== NGC 5575 = NGC 5578. N5578 was found by Marth, and his position is close enough to clearly identify the galaxy. Swift's position, though, is about 14 seconds on to the east. There is nothing there that he could have mistaken for a nebula, though, and his declination and description fits NGC 5575. The identity is almost certain. ===== NGC 5578. See NGC 5575. ===== NGC 5579 and NGC 5580. N5579 was first seen by WH who described it as simply "eF, pL." JH saw it twice, first in April 1827, and again in March 1831. N5580 was picked up by him only on the first occasion. Here are his data: NGC H h/Sweep RA (1950) Dec Desc 5579 III.415 1784/72 14 18 21.1 +35 25 08 F, pL, the preceding of 2 " " " /331 18.4 47 eF, L, 30 or 40''. 5580 --- 1785/72 14 18 33.5 +35 26 13 Not vF; 20''; the following of 2 There five other NGC objects in the area, all but one seen or discovered by WH and/or JH. The Herschels' data (all precessed to 1950.0) 5567 --- 1780/337 14 17 09.6 +35 21 03 pF, R 5588 --- 1789/28 14 19 18.8 +35 21 11 eF 5589 III.416 1788/71 14 19 18.9 +35 30 13 vF, S, R " " " /337 14 19 18.2 +35 29 37 The np of 2. Pos with other = 330.0 deg by micrometer. 5590 III.417 1791/28 14 19 31.5 +35 26 12 vF, a stellar nucleus " " " /71 14 19 32.0 +35 25 54 pF, R, 20'' " " " /337 14 19 29.8 +35 25 31 pB, R, psbM; 15''; the sf of 2. Moon above horizon. The other object was found by Bigourdan: 5568 = Big. 72 14 17 14.2 +35 19 18 vF, S, v dif There is little question about the identities of NGC 5567, 5568, 5579, 5589, and 5590. The GSC positions (B1950.0) are 5567 14 17 10.63 +35 22 01.7 5568 14 17 14.27 +35 19 16.9 5579 14 18 19.82 +35 25 00.2 5589 14 19 18.63 +35 29 54.1 5590 14 19 31.84 +35 25 56.5 However, as Glen Deen points out -- that's it. Nothing else in the area except stars and very faint galaxies that the visual observers would not have seen. The only other observations in the area before the NGC were by Lord Rosse; he and/or his observer looked twice for N5588, 5589, and 5590, and saw only two nebulae in the area both times. In spite of JH's rather emphatic statement in the GC notes, there are indeed only those two near JH's three positions. Looking at all of this, I noticed some peculiarities in the positions, descriptions, and sweeps. 1) First, N5580 was seen only during one sweep, and exactly precedes N5590 by one minute of time (the declinations are the same to within JH's usual standard deviation -- 2 arcmin give or take). 2) The description for N5580 is consistent with its being N5590. It also follows N5579 by the same amount that N5590 follows N5589, and is noted as the following of two. 3) Neither N5589 or N5590 were seen on the two sweeps when N5579 and N5580 were seen -- nor were N5579/80 seen on any of the sweeps when the others were seen. N5590 is also the brightest of the five objects, and is therefore the most likely to be seen during a sweep. So, I'm going to suggest that N5580 is actually N5590. This is not certain, of course, because N5579 is noted as the preceding of two in the same sweep in which N5580 was noted as the following of two. This would suggest that N5579 and N5589 are also identical -- but the positions and descriptions of those two fit very well with what we know is in the sky. Nevertheless, the idea that N5580 = N5590 is a plausible one, so I'll throw it out for discussion. ===== NGC 5580 may be = NGC 5590. See NGC 5579. ===== NGC 5583. See NGC 5586. ===== NGC 5586 may be = NGC 5587, but Swift's description ("eF, vS, R; nearly bet 2 B sts") doesn't match -- the galaxy is very elongated and there is only one bright star near to the southeast -- and his nominal declination is 44 arcmin off. Another possibility is CGCG 075-022, but that is too faint, and has no flanking bright stars. The other two candidate galaxies in the area, NGC 5583 and NGC 5591, were both found the same night as N5586, so are not likely to be the missing galaxy. There is no significant systematic offset in their positions, either. I searched at reasonable digit errors (+- 1 deg and +- 1 minute) with no luck, so the best we can do with this object for the time being is "Not found." ===== NGC 5587 may also be NGC 5586, which see. ===== NGC 5588 = NGC 5589. This was seen during a sweep with N5590 -- but N5589 was not picked up on that sweep. JH put it just about as far south of N5590 as N5589 is north, the RA's are identical (to within the errors, of course), and the descriptions are consistent (notice that JH called N5590 "vF" that night). It looks to me like N5588 is the same as N5589. ===== NGC 5589 = NGC 5588, which see. Also see NGC 5579 for more on the field. ===== NGC 5590 may also be NGC 5580. See NGC 5579. ===== NGC 5591. See NGC 5586. ===== NGC 5594 = IC 4412. Dreyer has noted that CH and JH have introduced an 11 arcmin error in WH's north polar distance offset from his comparison star. Even when the offset is corrected, the galaxy is still several arcmin from WH's position. But as there is no other bright galaxy near, this is the most likely candidate. Because of the error in the NGC position, Bigourdan did not find the galaxy, and Javelle rediscovered it in 1895. It made its way into the second IC from his third list. Javelle's position is good, though I find it odd that neither he nor WH mentioned the brighter star just to the southeast of the galaxy. Reinmuth was apparently the first to suggest the identity of the two numbers. ===== NGC 5607 = IC 1005, which see. ===== NGC 5609, NGC 5613, and NGC 5615 are all companions of NGC 5614 found by LdR. In spite of the good positions in NGC, there has been some confusion over the identifications. Even if the positions were not reliable, LdR's sketch of the field, and micrometric measurements of two of the novae, would be enough to clearly identify them. NGC 5614 and NGC 5615 have attracted recent attention as an interacting pair of galaxies. N5615 has a tidal plume streaming away from it and N5614, the clear result of the gravitational interaction. ===== NGC 5613. See NGC 5609. ===== NGC 5614. See NGC 5609. ===== NGC 5615. See NGC 5609. ===== NGC 5621 is two 16th magnitude stars with a 19th magnitude star just to the north. There is nothing in WH's position, but JH's position -- used in the GC and NGC -- is within his usual errors of the double star. ===== NGC 5632, NGC 5651, and NGC 5658 are more of the stars mistaken by the early Harvard observers (in this case, Harvard's then-director G. P. Bond) for nebulae. Bond's positions are good enough that Auwers picked up the correct stars in all three cases -- but still described them as nebulae. For NGC 5632, Auwers also noted an 11th magnitude star following the "nebula" on the parallel by 2 minutes 30 seconds of time. That star is GSC 4984-0094 at 14 29 15.66, -00 12 49.6 (n = 2, B1950.0). ===== NGC 5634. See NGC 5897. ===== NGC 5640. Dreyer has a note in the Scientific Papers that WH's offsets from another comparison star in the sweep, Kasan 2528, are probably to be prefered to those from 4 UMi which were used to reduce the NGC position of the galaxy. Neither position, in fact, is very good. The NGC places the object over a minute of time too far west, while Dreyer's new position places it too far east by about a minute. Both positions are about 3 arcmin too far south. All this assumes that CGCG 353-035 is indeed the object that WH found. In particular, his description "little extended near parallel" (i.e. extended in RA) is much more apt for the brighter component of CGCG 353-034. However, this object is yet another minute of time further to the west from the NGC position. So, I've prefered to stay with the "traditional" identification, though CGCG did not put the number on either galaxy. RNGC, however, got the correct object. ===== NGC 5648 = NGC 5649. There are only two "bright" galaxies in this area. The slightly brighter, northwestern of the two was found by WH, the southeastern by JH who also remeasured his father's nebula. During his first set of observations of the area in 1887, Bigourdan mistook NGC 5649 for a new nebula and published it in his first list of "novae." The correct position measured by Bigourdan is about 2 arcmin from JH's (used in GC and NGC), so Dreyer also assumed it was a new object and assigned it its own number in the NGC, 5648. Bigourdan remeasured the object in 1894 (his later position is within 2 arcsec of the earlier), and realized his mistake. He says, "This, which was mistaken for a new nebula [in 1887], is evidently III 645 [= NGC 5649]; the position is slightly erroneous in GC and NGC." Unfortunately, the modern catalogues have been confused by the extra number and by JH's positions (which are off 2-3 arcmin to the southeast), assigning NGC 5648 to the northwestern object, and using NGC 5649 for the southeastern. This second object of the pair is actually NGC 5655 (which see for its own problems in the modern catalogues). ===== NGC 5649 = NGC 5648, which see. ===== NGC 5650 = NGC 5652. Swift's description and position match NGC 5652, found a century earlier by William Herschel. Also observed by JH, the NGC position is pretty good -- as is Swift's. The mystery here is why neither Swift nor Dreyer caught the match. The RA's are only 8 seconds of time different, and the declinations even closer at 0.5 arcmin. Well, there are many other matching objects with even closer coordinates that Dreyer did not catch, either. Perhaps he was giving the benefit of doubt to the observers. ===== NGC 5651 is a star. See NGC 5632 and NGC 5658. ===== NGC 5652 = NGC 5650, which see. ===== NGC 5653 = IC 1026, which see. ===== NGC 5655 is not the very faint little smudge of a galaxy to which RNGC assigns the number. Rather, it is the southeastern of a pair seen by John Herschel, the brighter northwestern having also been seen by his father. Unfortunately, JH's positions for both are off by about 2-3 arcmin to the southeast of the true positions. This has led the modern catalogues to give the NGC number 5648 to the preceding of the pair, and 5649 to the following. Left with NGC 5655 unattached to any object, RNGC arbitrarily put it on the faint object that JH could not have seen. See NGC 5648 = NGC 5649, for more. ===== NGC 5658. Discovered in 1853 by the then director of Harvard Observatory, George P. Bond, the nominal position is 14 29 22 -00 08 50. There is only a faint star at this position, and there are no galaxies nearby that would match Bond's description ("An elongated nebula, fainter than the above [NGC 5651], seen 1853 May 9." See NGC 5632 for more. ===== NGC 5664 = IC 4455. Here is one which neither the NGC nor the IC get right (see the brief discussion under the IC number for that problem). The NGC observation comes from the first Leander McCormick list of nebulae: the RA is given to a whole minute of time only, and is 42 seconds off; the declination is off by more than 2 arcmin as well. But we do have a sketch showing the galaxy with four nearby field stars. These, along with a moderately useful description ("pF, S, E, gbM") positively identify the object. Since the position is fairly close (for a Leander McCormick position, anyway), Howe was able to find the right galaxy and give a corrected position in one of his MNRAS articles. Dreyer quotes this in the IC2 Notes, but also repeats the IC1 Note giving a corrected RA from Ormond Stone's 1893 paper "Southern Nebulae". This paper has three micrometric measurements of the object made on two different nights by Muller (one measurement) and Leavenworth (two measurements from about 10 months earlier). They used three different stars, so we are able to intercompare the resulting positions: they all agree with the value given in the IC Notes, and that RA is a minute of time larger than Howe's. Yet Howe is correct. The approximate positions for two of the Leander McCormick comparison stars are exactly one minute of time too large, while the RA offset (derived from 6 settings!) is one minute of time too small for the other star (for which an accurate and precise position is given). There are too many problems here to be simple typos or transcription errors, and I suspect that the numbers were "adjusted" to agree among themselves. In any event, the identity is secure. ===== NGC 5672 = IC 1030, which see. ===== NGC 5673 and IC 1029. It's clear that -- in spite of Dreyer's note (in his 1912 edition of William Herschel's papers) to the contrary (he was misled by John Herschel's position for the north-preceding galaxy) -- WH saw the south- following object of the pair. His position is very good, and his description "pB, S, E" leaves no doubt that it was the brighter of the two galaxies that he picked up in his sweep. It is also clear that John Herschel saw the north- preceding object. Again, his position is good, and his description "vF, pmE, sf a * 15m" is spot-on for the object. Faced with the problem of whether to use William or John's position for N5673, Dreyer simply followed the GC. For this, Sir John adopted his own position, believing (correctly) that it is statistically more reliable than his father's. Also believing that there was only one nebula in the field, Sir John (and Dreyer after him) did exactly what I would have done in the same situation: place the GC number (to be followed by the NGC number), on the fainter of the two galaxies. Bigourdan saw and measured both, though there is a typo in his 8 June 1899 description for NGC 5673: his comparison star is -1 min 48 sec -- not -1 min 58 sec -- away from BD +50 2091. Once this is corrected, his positions (re-reduced with respect to the Guide Star Catalogue positions for his comparison stars) agree very well with modern values from Dressel and Condon (used in RC3), and from the GSC. It's interesting to read his first description of IC 1029: "... the star near [N5673] mentioned in the GC description was not seen" (a very free translation by yrs trly). I think that he must have believed when he observed it that this object, quite the brighter of the two, was the GC (and NGC) galaxy. His estimates of the magnitude (12 and 12.8) of the star in his descriptions of N5673, by the way, are much more in line with today's magnitude scale than is Sir John's single estimate of 15. But we know that the scale was considerably stretched in Sir John's day, and was not rationalized until Pogson did his work in the mid-1800's. In any event, we end up with the number NGC 5673 = h1838 on the fainter galaxy, and the brighter galaxy is IC 1029 = H II 696 = B 185. As I said, I believe that we should leave things this way. We have, after all, the authority of the GC, the NGC, and the IC behind the numbering. And I see no reason to introduce confusion if we don't have to (though I have done it in other cases). In addition, if we adopt the other point of view and give Sir William historical precedence, then the north-preceding galaxy looses its GC and NGC numbers (though not its number in Sir John's 1833 list) altogether, and the south-following nebula becomes N5673 = I1029. There is no justification at all for transfering the number I1029 to the north-preceding object; this number was given to the south-following nebula by Dreyer, and there is no confusion of position or nomenclature for it in Bigourdan's observations, or in the IC. ===== NGC 5696. See NGC 5697. ===== NGC 5697 = IC 4471, which see. There are two numbers on this galaxy because the Herschel's positions differ by 43 seconds of time (WH is closer, but keep reading), and their declinations are five arcmin off the real declinations. So, Bigourdan was understandably confused by the field. IC 4471 has that part of the story. However, an NGC note reflects another confusion between NGC 5696 and N5697 that arises when comparing the Herschels' positions. WH's relative positions place the galaxies southwest-northeast (this is correct), while JH's put them northwest-southeast. JH's RA's are at fault, and he marks both of them with plus-minus signs. His declination for N5697 is also so marked, while that for N5696 is flagged with a colon. He also notes that the "RA [for N5696] is by working list", but there is some error in the reduction (CH's?) for that list as that RA is 20 seconds smaller than WH's, and 28 seconds smaller than the GC's and NGC's. Where did this RA come from? Whatever the answer, WH's reduced positions (from his discovery observations) are closer in both cases, but are still five arcmin off in declination. In the Scientific Papers, Dreyer notes that WH saw both objects in Sweep 725 on 9 April 1787. Here, WH has N5696 (II 648) 36 seconds preceding, 10 arcmin south of N5697 (II 675). This is reasonably close to the real offsets (in 1787) of 26.3 seconds and 8 arcmin 27 arcsec. JH made the best of the situation he could, and Dreyer faithfully copied it into the NGC. Fortunately, the positions are not too far off the real values, and there are no other galaxies nearby to further confuse the issue. So, the identities in the NGC can be adopted pretty much as they are. The 1860 NGC positions should read 14 31 32, 47 33.7 for N5696, and 14 31 06, 47 42.3 for N5697. ===== NGC 5699 = NGC 5706 and NGC 5703 = NGC 5709. Dreyer notes that a mistake in CH's reduction of her brother's observations placed III 127 and III 128 one degree too far south. JH did not catch the mistake for the GC, nor did Dreyer while preparing the NGC -- but he did notice it while working on his 1912 edition of WH's complete papers. Since he notes that Auwers has the correctly reduced positions, I suspect the discrepancy came to light when Dreyer was comparing CH's list to Auwers's. Once the correction is made, WH's positions are very close to two nebulae found by Stephan, NGC 5706 and NGC 5709. Stephan's micrometrically measured positions are excellent. ===== NGC 5703 = NGC 5709. See NGC 5699. ===== NGC 5704 is probably = NGC 5708. There is no doubt that WH's object (II 649) is NGC 5708; his description matches, and his position is just about 1.6 arcmin north-northeast of the galaxy. JH, however, has the number on the one observation of his in the area that does not apply to the galaxy. That one night, JH's position ends up almost exactly on the preceding star of a wide double (the position angle is about 100 degrees) -- is it possible that he mistook it for a nebula? His description, "F, S, R," supports this notion, with the shape being at variance with his father's "F, S, E nearly mer., r." Note, in particular, that WH has the galaxy extended north-south (as it actually is), not nearly east-west as the orientation of the double star would have it. His final comment ("r" = mottled) is probably due to the star superposed on the south- east edge of the galaxy, as well as the rather patchy nature of the object itself. On that same night, JH has another observation of what he calls a "nova" which is nevertheless clearly the galaxy. The position agrees, and his description "F, pL, E nearly in merid.; gbM" does, too. JH has one other observation that he credits to the first of these two objects, but he comments that the position is bad. He apparently did not notice that that "bad" position is identical to his two positions for NGC 5708 (the mean of his three positions is only 15 arcsec off the galaxy). So, the only puzzle is the position of the object found by JH which received the NGC number 5704. This is the position given in GC and NGC, and as I noted above, is close to the western component of a double star. However, since there is only one galaxy here, and since it is clear that both Herschel's saw it, I am going to put both NGC numbers on the object. But we do have to keep in mind that JH claimed to have seen two nebulae here on one night, so it is still possible that we could claim NGC 5704 as the star. ===== NGC 5706 = NGC 5699, which see. ===== NGC 5708 is probably also = NGC 5704, which see. ===== NGC 5709 = NGC 5703. See NGC 5699. ===== NGC 5721, 5722, 5723, and 5724. The brightest three of this small group of six galaxies were found by William and John Herschel, the other three by Lord Rosse and his observer at the time, Johnstone Birney. Fortunately, the Birr Castle observers provide a diagram, so the galaxies can be positively identified, even though Dreyer's estimated NGC postions are not quite correct. MCG got all the numbers right, but the double nebula, CGCG 248-016, is incorrectly labeled as NGC 5721 + NGC 5723; it should be NGC 5721 + NGC 5722. Is NGC 5724 the faintest positively identified NGC galaxy? It looks to be about 18th magnitude on the blue POSS1 print. There may be other such faint objects lurking among Lord Rosse's observations, but I don't recall seeing them. ===== NGC 5722. See NGC 5721. ===== NGC 5723. See NGC 5721. ===== NGC 5724. See NGC 5721. ===== NGC 5730 and NGC 5731. Here is another pair found by WH to which he gave only one position. John Herschel states explicitly that he estimated the position of the preceding of the two with respect to the following object. His position for N5731 = H III 658 = h 1868 is good, but that for N5730 = H III 657 = h 1867 is off in declination: his offset places it north-preceding N5731, not south-preceding as it really is. This has led to confusion only in CGCG which has the identifications reversed. All other major catalogues have this pair named correctly, though UGC placed colons on the names, indicating some uncertainty on Nilson's part about the identifications. There is a small mystery, though: where did the position angle notation in GC and NGC come from? It is correct (90 deg, which helps pin down the identification), but neither of the Herschel's published catalogues give a measurement. It is probably buried in Sir John's unpublished papers, as are the details for other of his observations (see e.g. NGC 980 and NGC 982). ===== NGC 5731; is it IC 1045? See NGC 5730 for a CGCG confusion. See IC 1045 for a Swift confusion. The identity with NGC 5731 is not in doubt, but there is some concerning IC 1045. ===== NGC 5736. This is one of Swift's sixth list objects which he communicated to Dreyer before publication. In this case, the NGC position is virtually spot on the modern position -- but Swift's published position is over 4 arcmin away. Still, the identification is certain as this is the brightest of the three galaxies in the area (the largest is UGC 09490, an edgewise spiral with a rather low surface brightness). This tinkering by Swift with his positions was almost a hallmark in his lists. In another case (NGC 6039 = NGC 6042, NGC 6040, and NGC 6041 in the Hercules Cluster; see these for more), Swift's revised positions are very good and agree well with Stephan's (who found them independently). Yet in the rest of the cluster, Swift's positions are as poor as ever. Is it possible that he fudged his data a bit to make them look better than they really were? Possibly, possibly ... ===== NGC 5747 = IC 4493. WH's single discovery observation is about 50 seconds of time too far east. Bigourdan looked for NGC 5747 at WH's position and of course saw nothing. He did find the object, however, and measured it twice. He included it in his 4th list of new nebulae, so it received a number in the second IC. Herschel's note on the object, quoted by Dreyer in the 1912 reprinting of Herschel's papers, reads, "An extremely faint nebula, it is small and required some time to look at before it could be well seen." This helps to explain the position error, but errors of this size are not unknown in others of WH's observations. ===== NGC 5758 is the brighter of two nearly equal galaxies. It can be identified by Swift's note, "B * f 22 seconds". There is indeed a star about that far from the galaxy (actually about 19 seconds; the distance is only 12 seconds for the fainter galaxy). CGCG picked the correct galaxy, but Wolfgang did not, at least for his first edition. I suspect he will correct that for later editions of his catalogue. ===== NGC 5761 carries in the NGC another of the notoriously poor early Leander McCormick positions. Nevertheless, I am almost certain that this is one or the other of ESO 580-G039 or ESO 580-G040. Since the LM positions are more likely to be off in RA than in Dec, and since the nominal declination is close to that of -G040, this suggests that the RC3 identification with G39 is incorrect. However, -G039 is nearly a magnitude brighter than -G040 in ESO-LV, it is larger, and it is also more face-on -- all factors that suggest that it, and not -G040, is N5761. Unfortunately, there is no discovery sketch, so we can only guess at this point. Forced to a decision, I would say that the RC3 identification is perhaps correct -- but I certainly wouldn't bet any of my cats on it! ===== NGC 5778 may also be NGC 5825, which see. ===== NGC 5782 was described by Swift as "eF, vS, E, * nr sf." His position is poor and lands on an empty patch of sky. 35 seconds preceding his position, though, there is a faint spindle that CGCG (076-094), MCG (+02-38-021), and RNGC all chose as the galaxy Swift saw. It fits his description, down to the star south-following -- except that there are two brighter stars closer to the galaxy north-preceding. Why didn't Swift mention them as well? There is, in fact, a better candidate for N5782. Steve Gottlieb points out that UGC 09602 and its fainter companion match exactly the revised position that Bigourdan provided in 1894 (and confirmed in 1899). Dreyer reported this position in the IC2 notes, and there is every reason to adopt U9602 as N5782. There is a star -- brighter than any of the three around the other galaxy -- within an arcminute of the nucleus of U9602. Also, the galaxy is significantly brighter, and has a higher surface brightness, than CGCG 076-094. The companion is nearly in contact with U9602, and would probably appear as part of it in a smaller telescope, making it appear "extended," just as Swift described it. ===== NGC 5783 = NGC 5785. Both objects are nominally from Swift's 6th list, but we need to note that he sent that 6th list bit by bit to Dreyer in several letters during 1886 and 1887 before he later published it. NGC 5785 appeared in the published version of the list, but NGC 5783 did not. The position for N5783 is closer to the true position of the galaxy, but the description for N5785 is mostly appropriate, and the RA is just 30 seconds out. The part of the description that is not accurate is Swift's note "np of 2." The galaxy is actually the north-following of the pair (the other is NGC 5788, which see). ===== NGC 5785 = NGC 5783, which see. ===== NGC 5788 is actually the south-preceding of a pair of galaxies, not the south- following (the other, brighter galaxy is NGC 5783 = NGC 5785, which see). At least this is the obvious solution to the mess in Swift's 6th list and the NGC. It requires Swift to have confused his positions and orientations, something that happened more than once in his observations of nebulae. ===== NGC 5794 is UGC 09610; the NGC position is good. RNGC, however, struck again, getting the wrong position for this as well as for NGC 5797, 5804, and 5805 (all of which see). ===== NGC 5795. Once again, Swift's description in his original paper provides the correct identification: "vF; pS; eE; spindle; pB * close to p end; [N5794, N5797, N5804, N5805] in field." This pinpoints the galaxy 1 deg, 10' north of Swift's position. The description is correct in every respect except that the star is superposed on the following end. The position of the galaxy, (which is MCG +08-27-035 = UGC 09617 = CGCG 248-029) is 14 54 39.5 +49 35 58 (measured with respect to SAO 045288). ===== NGC 5797 is UGC 09619. RNGC has got the wrong position for this as well as for NGC 5794, 5804, and 5805 -- in spite of good positions in NGC. See NGC 5805 for more. ===== NGC 5804 is UGC 09627. In spite of a good position in the NGC, RNGC has managed to mangle the identifications of not just this, but also N5794, N5797, and N5805 (which see), also in the area. N5804 has a bright Seyfert nucleus, easily visible on the Sky Survey prints as well as visually. ===== NGC 5805. Bob Erdmann points out that this is MCG +08-27-039 (with its declination corrected), a faint double galaxy also mentioned in the UGC Note for N5804, though not called N5805 there. Nor is it noted as a double object in either catalogue, though all the surveys clearly show the fainter companion just to the southeast. This was discovered by Lord Rosse east-southeast of N5804. His sketch shows N5805 as well as N5794, N5797, and N5804 clearly in relation to the 6th mag star mentioned in JH's descriptions for the three brighter galaxies. In spite of the good NGC positions for all four objects, RNGC has unfortunately put the numbers on the wrong galaxies in this field. ===== NGC 5808 = NGC 5819. In spite of what Dreyer says in his notes to WH's Papers, the galaxy is very nearly between two stars about 6 arcmin apart, just as WH claims. D'Arrest's description ("Forms a triangle with two stars") is also correct -- the triangle is quite flat. D'A's position is pretty good, WH's less so: it is out by a minute of time in RA, and 6.5 arcmin in Dec. But there is no doubt concerning the identity; the stars nail it down. ===== NGC 5816 and NGC 5817 are two more of the nebulae found at Leander McCormick in the mid-1880s for which only approximate RAs were given. There are no sketches to help with the identifications. Herbert Howe searched for at least one of the nebulae from Chamberlain Observatory at Denver, but has only this to say about N5817, "The position is 14 54 07, -15 46.9." (The equinox is 1900.0.) This position falls on one of two galaxies 2.5 minutes west of Stone's RA, an offset common among many other of the Leander McCormick nebulae. Howe says nothing at all about N5816. Howe's declination falls between Stone's two, so I'm not convinced that the object Howe observed should actually be called NGC 5817. It is, in fact, the brighter of the pair. That would suggest it is really NGC 5816, which Stone puts at m = 11.0, compared to N5817 which he has at m = 14.0. However, Stone also puts the brighter object to the north, while the real brightest galaxy is the southern of the pair. Given this confusion, I'm going to keep Howe's identity for the brighter object as NGC 5817. The galaxy already appears in several catalogues under that number, and Dreyer included the corrected RA in the notes to IC2 under the same number. ===== NGC 5817. See NGC 5816. ===== NGC 5819 = NGC 5808, which see. ===== NGC 5825 may be identical to NGC 5778. The descriptions fit -- especially the "pB star close following" -- and the declinations are close. However, the RA's are 7 min 40 sec apart, and Swift found both objects on the same night. There are no other galaxies in the area that might be NGC 5825, though, so I'm going to keep the possibility of the identity in the table. ===== NGC 5826 is almost certainly identical to NGC 5870, in spite of the large difference in RA (7.0 minutes of time). In addition to the NGC description, Swift's original description in his first list adds these comments: "Star near; [GC] 4058 [= NGC 5866] in field." These additional notes make it pretty certain that Swift was looking at NGC 5870 (which he rediscovered two nights later). In particular, NGC 5866 is too far from his nominal position for N5826 to be in even his 32 arcmin field. N5870 is close enough, though, and it has the star nearby. ===== NGC 5840. Unless this is IC 4533 1 deg 43 arcmin south of Swift's nominal position, the object is probably lost. There is nothing else nearby that Swift could have seen, and he leaves us nothing to go on in the way of other clues. His description reads only "eeeF, pS, lE, ee diff[icult]." IC 4533 is also unlikely to be the object Swift saw because there is a brighter star just a couple of arcminutes northeast of the galaxy; Swift would probably have mentioned the star in his description, as Javelle in fact did. ===== NGC 5856 = ADS 9505 = SAO 101379 is a double star. WH described the object this way: "A star 7.6m enveloped in extensive milky nebulosity. Another star 7m is perfectly free from such appearance." JH on the other hand, noted "A star of fully 6m, with a supposed nebulous appearance about it, but of whose reality I cannot satisfy myself, as it `blinks' with the star behind the wire." D'Arrest made three observations of the star, but only suspected the nebulosity twice. Finally, Bigourdan saw no nebulosity around the star on two different nights. It is hard to reconcile WH's observation with a close double star. But there is certainly no nebulosity around the star now. The spectrum of the brighter component is that of a normal A2 V star with no emission noted. So, N5856 goes into the table as just a close double star. ===== NGC 5861. While preparing images for the NGC/IC Project's web pages, Bob Erdmann ran across a splendid edgewise galaxy in the DSS image of NGC 5861 just west-northwest of the bright spiral. Wondering what it was, Bob tried to find it in NED -- no luck, though it of course appears in the DSS images of N5861 there. He had better luck with HyperLeda where the object carries the number LEDA 3xxxxxx. So why wasn't this in NED? It is a big object, with a major axis diameter nearly that of N5861 itself -- it should be there. Digging further, I found that not only was it not in NED, I had not included it in ESGC, and I had not even made a note about it under the entry for the NGC galaxy! "Was I blind?!" I facetiously asked Bob in an email. Well, it's clearly time to try another plate: the object does not appear on the DSS2 red plate, nor is it on the NEAT/SkyMorph plate. It also does not appear on the POSS1 red or blue prints, nor in any of the 2MASS scans. (It does appear on the "DSS2" blue images, but that is because HEASARC's SkyView uses DSS1 blue images for any part of the sky that does not yet have DSS2 blue coverage). So, the spindle "galaxy" is a defect on the IIIa-J plate. Just to be accurate about this, the equatorial position is 15 09 07.06, -11 18 41.4 (J2000.0) or 15 06 23.60, -11 07 17.1 (B1950.0). Others have probably already stumbled across this -- or if they haven't, they certainly will. One last note: it has a LEDA number because the LEDA group has included over a million non-stellar objects from GSC in HyperLeda. Most are galaxies, but the HyperLeda group has not been able to check them all. So, there are undoubtedly many more "galaxies" like this in HyperLeda. This demonstrates a larger problem with all of the automated galaxy catalogues and surveys. All are "polluted" to a greater or lesser extent with non-galaxies. There are no sure methods for cleaning out the interlopers. Their percentage in any given catalogue is nevertheless small, ranging from about 10% in the APM galaxy catalogue, to less than 1% in the SDSS list with redshifts. Nevertheless, they are there, so we need to approach these big catalogues with some caution and considerable preparation. ===== NGC 5865 = NGC 5868. Here, RC3 followed Dreyer (1912) who writes that NGC 5865 should be deleted since NGC 5868 is = H II 684 (WH's position is enough off that JH thought N5868 a "nova"). Dreyer is right -- there are only two bright galaxies in the area, not three (or four as Tempel claims; see NGC 5871 for more on this). So, I will let RC3 stand as is. However, since both NGC numbers clearly refer to the same object, there can be no confusion if N5865 is adopted. ===== NGC 5866 may be Messier 102. There is a long history, particularly in France, of taking this galaxy to be one of those found by Mechain (in 1781 in this case), and verified by Messier. For M102, however, Messier's verification is limited to a penciled-in position in his own copy of his list published in Connaissance des Temps for 1783/4. That position is "14.40" and "56", i.e. 14h 40m, +56d. There is no equinox given, but we can assume it to be 1780 without too much error. For comparison, the accurate position for N5866 precesses back to 15 00.5, +56 37 for 1780. For M101 (= NGC 5457, which see), the other usual choice for M102, the precessed accurate position is 13 55.4, +55 25. It's clear than neither galaxy fits the written-in position in Messier's list. But some evidence in favor of both objects has been found. This has been collected in a Web document by Hartmut Frommert on the SEDS site: http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m102d.html To summarize: Messier's working maps were laid out in grids of five degrees in both RA and Dec. This makes it possible that the written-in position was hastily read off his map with a 20 minute and 1 degree error for "15.00" and "57"; this would make the object NGC 5866. The case for M102 being M101 is, in my mind, somewhat more convincing. Quite simply, Mechain wrote in 1783 to the editor of the Berliner Jahrbuch that the observation of M102 is nothing more than a repeated observation of M101. This letter still exists and was published in 1947 by Helen Sawyer. N5866 could certainly have been seen by both Messier and Mechain; other of Messier's objects are fainter (e.g. M92). However, Mechain's description is not very helpful: "Nebula between the stars Omicron [this should read "Theta"] Bootis and Iota Draconis; it is very faint; near it is a star of sixth magnitude." Aside from the description of the position, this could fit either galaxy. "Omicron" is almost certainly a typesetting error -- a lower case "Theta", with the top loop almost closed, looks quite a bit like a lower case "omicron." In the end, the evidence is contradictory, and the true identity of M102 may be lost forever. As I said, however, I lean toward the identity with M101. Also see NGC 5826 where Swift has confused this with another galaxy, and NGC 5867 where this helps in the identity of that object. ===== NGC 5867 is a compact galaxy just a few arcminutes south-southwest of NGC 5866. It was seen twice by LdR, and the sketch on which he shows it is an accurate depiction of the field around NGC 5866. Also, the position that Dreyer gives in the NGC is quite good (though he notes in LdR's monograph that the GC position is somewhat off). I suspect that the near-stellar appearance of the galaxy has led other modern cataloguers to mistake it for a star. ===== NGC 5868 = NGC 5865, which see. ===== NGC 5869. See NGC 5871. ===== NGC 5870 is almost certainly also equal to NGC 5826, which see. ===== NGC 5871 is a star. Tempel claims to have seen four nebulae here, the other three being N5865, N5868, and N5869, all included in the GC. He has them in the form of a trapezium, and made a sketch, though he unfortunately did not publish it. There are, in fact, only two nebulae in the area (see N5865 = N5868 for more on the identity). So, two of Tempel's objects are almost certainly stars (he has many other stars among his novae). Given the trapezium layout, and the NGC position (probably sent to Dreyer directly as it does not appear in Tempel's fifth paper), the star I've measured on the DSS is probably the correct one for NGC 5871. But there are other stars in the area that Tempel could have seen, so I don't want to insist that this is certainly his object. After all, I chose a different star while working on ESGC. Perhaps we can find Tempel's sketches some day and definitively locate some of his new "nebulae." ===== NGC 5876 = IC 1111, which see. ===== NGC 5877 is a double star with a third star close to the north. The two southern stars are a bit fainter than the northern one, and are a bit closer together than they are to the northern. These facts apparently made all the difference in Schmidt's observation -- he saw them as a faint, small nebula with a 12th magnitude star attached to the north. Interestingly, his observation is not in any of the published papers of his that I have (including the two referenced in the NGC), nor does Dreyer give the reference in his GC Supplement. This is one case where I have not seen the original publication. Fortunately, Schmidt's position is very good and points right at the asterism. ===== NGC 5881 = IC 1100. Dreyer notes that the minute of the 1860 RA should be 4, not 6. This still leaves the NGC position about a minute of time off IC 1100 at 15 05 22.5 +63 10 19, but there is no other reasonable match. The IC position is not too good (Swift again), but the galaxy is a high surface brightness spiral, and the identification is reasonably secure. RC3 and RNGC are incorrect. ===== NGC 5884 is a double star. This is one of the "nebulae" found by J. G. Lohse, communicated directly to Dreyer. Like several others in the list, it turns out to be only a double star. Lohse's position and description is good, however, and clearly identifies the object. ===== NGC 5886. See NGC 5889. ===== NGC 5888. See NGC 5889. ===== NGC 5889. Lord Rosse's description suggests that NGC 5889 is as far north- following N5888 as N5888 is north-following N5886. The identity is thus clear and RC3 is just as clearly wrong (the RC3 listing is probably a duplicate of NGC 5888). The correct position for N5889 is 15 11 25.9 +41 30 51. ===== NGC 5897 is H VI 8 as well as H VI 19. JH noted the identification problem with the stars observed in WH's Sweep 209 on 25 April 1784 (see CGH, p. 109), and Auwers and Dreyer have notes about the field [Dreyer's are in the NGC, p. 223; IC1, p. 284 (combined NGC/IC edition of 1962); WH's Scientific Papers, Volume 1, p. 302; and MNRAS 73, 37, 1912]. (Marth apparently also published a note on VI 8 in 1864, but I have not seen that.) None of these folks positively identified VI 8, the only non-stellar object seen in the sweep, though Dreyer mentioned the possibility of N5897 and was leaning toward N5634 in 1912. The confusion arose simply because 25 April was a poor night; WH noted "flying clouds and hazy" at the beginning of the sweep. Nevertheless he, hoping to see more of the great "stratum" of nebulae that he'd found the previous months, swept for just over half an hour until he was completely clouded out. The entire sweep consists of four stars and one cluster. Dreyer reproduces the sweep in the Scientific Papers: 13h 57m .. .. flying clouds and hazy 14 01} } 62 1d19' 7.8m -0.5} 10.7 89 1 45 7m 12.5 0 19 cluster ... 25.2 59 1 16 star 25.4 -16 4 6.7m 31 .. .. cloudy The first column is the clock reading. Dreyer notes that WH reset the clock after the previous sweep, and that there is an uncertainty of 11 or 12 minutes in the readings. The second column is not explained, but is apparently a raw reading, approximately in arcminutes, of the relative north polar distance. The third column is reduced to relative north polar distance in degrees and arcminutes, and the fourth gives notes and object descriptions. So, the sweep consists of relative positions of four stars and one cluster. WH's full description of the cluster clearly makes it a globular: "A very close, compressed cluster of stars, 8 or 9' in diameter, extremely rich, of an irregular round figure, a little extended. The stars are so small as hardly to be visible, and so accumulated in the middle as to look nebulous." There are only three globular clusters in the right RA (14h to 16h) and Dec (+5d to -25d) ranges: NGC 5634, NGC 5897, and NGC 5904 (M 5). None of the historical sources mention NGC 5904, probably assuming it is too large and bright to have been WH's mystery object. As I've noted, Dreyer seemed to favor N5634 over N5897. However, N5634 is only half the size noted by WH, and has a bright star near to the southeast, and another even brighter star fairly close to the south-southwest. WH would have noted these in any description that he made of the object (as he, in fact, did; see the GC and NGC descriptions for N5634). This leaves NGC 5897 as the most likely candidate. That it is indeed the correct object can be shown by reducing the relative clock times and polar distances for the stars to absolute values, using the equinox 1784.32 position of the cluster as the origin. That gives the following positions for equinoxes 1784.32 and (precessed to) J2000: RA (1784.32) Dec RA (J2000) Dec RA (ICRS) Dec V BD 14 53.6 -21 12 15 06.0 -22 03 15 06 27.14 -22 01 54.6 6.14 -21 4030 15 03.2 -21 38 15 15.7 -22 27 15 16 23.01 -22 23 57.9 5.52 -21 4065 15 17.7 -21 09 15 30.2 -21 54 15 30 42.81 -21 52 42.8 7.80 -21 4128 15 17.9 -19 57 15 30.3 -20 42 15 30 36.25 -20 43 42.8 6.21 -20 4246 I've added the Tycho-2 positions, the V magnitudes, and the BD identifications to the table. It's easy to see that WH's positions are systematically too small in RA and too far south in Dec. But if the systematic differences are removed, the stars match the modern positions to within WH's usual errors (3-4 arcmin). It's also easy to see the effect of the clouds on WH's magnitude estimates, too. Going through the exercise using NGC 5634 and M 5 as the origins shows that they could not have been WH's cluster -- there are no stars near them matching the relative positions and magnitudes noted in the sweep. Dreyer could have performed this same exercise with the BD (I used SAO and the version of Tycho-2 online at CDS), but for some reason did not. Since it is an obvious check, and could easily have been done using the BD data, I wonder if anyone else has thought to do this over the years. In any event, there is no doubt that NGC 5897 is the mystery object H VI 8. ===== NGC 5904 = M 5. See NGC 5897 and IC 4540. ===== NGC 5919. Swift found two objects in this area. One, NGC 5920, can be clearly identified as the brightest galaxy in a poor cluster (MKW 3s). N5919, however, could be any of four or five other objects in the core of the cluster north preceding N5920. It is probably the brightest of these, CGCG 049-142e, but neither is Swift's position good enough, nor his description detailed enough, to be completely sure. Nevertheless, I have taken this object as N5919. ===== NGC 5920. See NGC 5919. ===== NGC 5931 is not IC 1122 as is sometimes assumed from the NGC and IC data and descriptions. N5931 was found by Swift whose position for it is quite good. This is the brightest galaxy in the area, one of the so-called "cD" galaxies in a cluster. These objects average one to two magnitudes brighter than the second brightest galaxy in the clusters, so they are often quite outstanding from their several faint companions. This is certainly the case here since N5931 is at least a magnitude brighter than I1122, the second brightest in the cluster. Next, Barnard, who was following an asteroid, ran across the brighter galaxy a few years after Swift. Barnard made a micrometric measurement of it and published it as a new object. His paper gives the position of his reference star as well as the offsets to the galaxy. The star's position is good, but the Dec offset is in error by 47 arcsec. This must reflect some sort of reduction error in Barnard's calculations as it appears to be a random number, not a clean digit error as we often see in the NGC and ICs. Fortunately, Barnard's description of the object mentions an 11th magnitude star 1 arcmin preceding. If we take the distance and magnitude of this star to be estimates (the actual separation is 2 arcmin and the magnitude is 13), then the object which Barnard saw is Swift's galaxy. Finally, Bigourdan found a "nova" while measuring NGC 5931 (which he had no trouble identifying; his position is within an arcsecond of the GSC position). While Bigourdan's position for the new object is off by about 15 arcsec, he comments that because the nebula is so faint, it was difficult to measure. Even so, it is clearly a different object than NGC 5931, and so is not the same "new" object that Barnard saw. Dreyer, however, faced with a micrometric measurement from Barnard, and an estimated position from Bigourdan (whose comparison star was not measured until GSC), agreeing to within about two arcmin, did the logical thing and adopted the micrometric measurement. So, the first IC includes the wrong position for IC 1122, credits its discovery to Barnard as well as to Bigourdan, and also includes Barnard's comment about the preceding star in the description. In actuality, IC 1122 is a separate galaxy found by Bigourdan and given a pretty good position and description by him. I've adopted his object here. ===== NGC 5934. See NGC 5935. ===== NGC 5935 is misidentified in the UGC Notes (for N5934 = UGC 9862) as "NGC 5934." Aside from that, the identifications in the various catalogues are correct. ===== NGC 5940. See NGC 5941. ===== NGC 5941, 5942, and 5944. These are three of a group of four nebulae found by Lewis Swift on 19 April 1887 (the brightest of the four is NGC 5940, about which there is no identity question). Bigourdan observed these two years later, but found that N5941 was north-following N5942, rather than north- preceding as Swift's positions would suggest. Confusingly, CGCG and MCG call Bigourdan's N5942 "N5941," and point to yet another galaxy as "N5942." RNGC and Hickson followed CGCG in their NGC identifications, but Steve Gottlieb also questions their choice of N5941. The problems have arisen because of Swift's poor positions which are systematically north-preceding the true positions of the galaxies. In addition, the galaxies are in the core of the rich cluster Abell 2085. Hickson catalogued them -- and several fainter ones in the area -- as his compact group number 76. Among these are four that Swift could conceiveably have seen. Steve's observations suggest that Hickson 076b (the brightest) is NGC 5941, 076d (the second brightest) is N5942, and 076a is N5944. Bigourdan used the same identifications except for N5942; he put this number on Hickson 076c. Since this object is half a magnitude brighter than d, this seems a more plausible choice. Swift's descriptions provide little help except that he notes N5941 as "ee dif(ficult)" and N5942 as "eee dif." This would suggest that N5941 is the brighter of the two (as noted by Bigourdan) -- but that would make it the 3rd of 4, rather than the 2nd as Swift notes. I'm inclined to follow Bigourdan's suggestion, however, even if it places the objects out of Swift's order. The first brightest is enough brighter than the others that both Steve and I would be very surprised if it were not among the galaxies that Swift observed here. So, with some uncertainty, I am going to call NGC 5941 = Hickson 76b, NGC 5942 = Hickson 76c, and NGC 5944 = Hickson 76a. This leaves Hickson 76d without an NGC number; while it is not the faintest of the four, it does have a lower surface brightness which -- combined with its relatively faint magnitude -- would make it the least visible of the four objects in question. ===== NGC 5942. See NGC 5941. ===== NGC 5944. See NGC 5941. ===== NGC 5952 is not IC 1126 (which is a star; see its note for more). Bigourdan observed both objects the same night (12 April 1886) and measured both with respect to the same star. Though his position (from a single measurement) for NGC 5952 is about 20 arcsec south of the galaxy, the object is so faint that I'm surprised he saw it. After all, Marth, using a 48-inch reflector when he found the galaxy, described it as "eF, vS, alm stell." Bigourdan, trying to dig it out with a 12-inch was doing well to even detect it, let alone measure it. It is vaguely possible that this galaxy is also IC 4552 (which see), but that is very unlikely. ===== NGC 5955, like NGC 5952 (which see) is not at all likely to also be IC 4552 (also which see). ===== NGC 5964 = IC 4551, which see. There is nothing wrong with d'A's observation of this large, nearby galaxy. But Swift's position, from over a third of a century later, is well off. His description, though, is as appropriate as d'A's. ===== NGC 5998 is probably not a cluster, but it is close to WH's position, and matches his description. It is so clearly seen on the IIIa-J film that I'm a bit surprised that both RNGC and ESO list it as not found. Still, the relevant information is not in NGC; WH's description reads, in full, "A cluster of very small stars, pretty rich, 6 arcmin long, 4 arcmin broad; in the form of a parallelogram." The parallelogram encloses about two dozen stars, half of which are in GSC. The center of the figure is about 2 arcmin northeast of WH's place, but that is well within his usual error for clusters. ===== NGC 6001. See NGC 6002. ===== NGC 6002 may be a star 1.9 arcmin south of NGC 6001. It was found by Lord Rosse while he was examining NGC 6001 = H III 371. While he gives a micrometric offset from the galaxy (PA = 197.3 deg, distance = 97.6 arcsec), there is nothing in his place. A pretty low surface brightness spindle galaxy, MCG +05-37-026, is about an arcmin northwest of Lord Rosse's position, but it is faint enough that I doubt that he would have seen it. The star is closer to the measured position, but it, too, is quite faint. So, this remains a bit of a mystery. The galaxy that Wolfgang chose as N6002 is much too faint to have been seen visually, even with the 72-inch. I would put my money on the star and some kind of measuring error. ===== NGC 6014 = IC 4586, which see. ===== NGC 6018 may also be IC 1150, which see. ===== NGC 6020 = IC 1148, which see. ===== NGC 6027 is the brightest galaxy in Seyfert's Sextet. There is some confusion about the designations for the six objects in the modern catalogues, but they are fairly easy to sort out. Nevertheless, I have retained the original letter designations assigned by Carl Seyfert in his 1951 PASP paper, in spite of my "rule" mandating positional notation in multiplets. I also find it curious that Stephan saw only one of the galaxies here. As well as NGC 6027 itself, Seyfert's "a" and "b" are probably bright enough to be seen visually, especially in the 70-cm reflector that Stephan was using. Note also that Hickson and a few others considers "e" to be simply a tidal extension of N6027. This it may be, but I've retained the separate listing. ===== NGC 6028 = NGC 6046, which see. ===== NGC 6039 = NGC 6042. The description in Swift's list 4 reads "sp of 3," though it should be "sf of 3." Swift's positions in the Hercules Cluster area are not very good, and a few of his objects -- including this one -- are not identified with certainty. In defense of his positions, Swift claims that they agree well enough with Stephan's for the objects in common. This is true. It is also true that Swift's other positions for Hercules Cluster objects are much further off the mark. Did he perhaps fudge the numbers a bit for the three objects common to both lists? The others are NGC 6040 and NGC 6041, both pairs of galaxies. Also see NGC 5736 for another of Swift's nebulae which have different positions in different of his lists. ===== NGC 6040. See NGC 5736, as well as NGC 6039 = NGC 6042 where I suggest that Swift might have fudged his position for this to make it agree better with Stephan's micrometrically-measured place. ===== NGC 6041. See NGC 6039 = NGC 6042. ===== NGC 6042 = NGC 6039, which see. ===== NGC 6044 = IC 1172, which see. ===== NGC 6046 = NGC 6028. WH's RA is 3 minutes 20 seconds of time too large. Re-reducing his observation reduces the error to 3 minutes of time. Since the NGC position is copied correctly from the GC, the 20-second error is probably a reduction error of some sort. The larger 3-minute error could be a clock- reading or transcription error. Fortunately, Dreyer gives WH's complete description in a note in the Scientific Papers: "A neb suspected by 157 and the suspicion strengthened by 240, but the latter power does not remove all doubt. It follows 3 pB stars making an arch [concave towards np or nnp direction by a diagram]{Dreyer's comment}, south of which arch there is a still brighter star." Dreyer probably gave the whole description since Bigourdan twice searched unsuccessfully for WH's nebula. The arch is there, but is concave toward the northeast. The "still brighter star" to the south is SAO 101676. The configuration is so striking that there is no doubt about the identification. ===== NGC 6049 = SAO 121361. JH's description reads, "A * 7m which I am strongly incline [sic] to think has a nebulous atmosphere about 2 arcmin in diameter." There is no trace of nebulosity on modern photographs, and the star has a normal A2 spectrum. It is a spectroscopic binary, but that would not have been a factor in JH's observation. ===== NGC 6050 = IC 1179, which see. ===== NGC 6052 = NGC 6064, which see. ===== NGC 6053 = NGC 6057, which see. ===== NGC 6054 = IC 1183. Swift notes that the neighboring star is south preceding, not south following. This points at IC 1183 as the galaxy that received the number 6054 in the NGC. In support of this, IC 1183 is considerably brighter and has a higher surface brightness than the spiral that is usually taken as NGC 6054. Bigourdan did not see the spiral, either, so the identity is virtually certain. ===== NGC 6055. See NGC 6057. ===== NGC 6056 = IC 1176, which see. ===== NGC 6057 = NGC 6053. Swift found the brightest of the two objects near this place (the other is NGC 6055) on 6 June 1886. Two nights later, he found both objects, but apparently thought both were new discoveries. It is also possible that he saw CGCG 108-127 and made a 10 arcmin error in his declination. However, this would place his position somewhat northeast of the true place of the CGCG galaxy, whereas his positions for the other objects he discovered on 6 June are generally southwest of the true places. ===== NGC 6059 is probably lost for good. I could not find it for ESGC, and there are no galaxies at reasonable offsets from the nominal position that Swift might have seen. His complete description was copied intact into NGC, and his position was correctly precessed, so the original paper was no help in this case. The IC1 note is another curiosity about the field: there is nothing at Bigourdan's "revised" position, either. There are a few faint stars and even fainter galaxies in the area, but nothing that Bigourdan could have seen. He comments under his observation of IC 4589 (which see), that he doesn't see how it would be possible to mistake IC 4589 for N6059. He's right. Finally, there are no systematic offsets in Swift's positions for the night of 6 May 1886 that might lead us to a galaxy. Another (N4280, which see) of those objects, though, is also probably lost. ===== NGC 6061. See IC 1190. ===== NGC 6064 = NGC 6052. Dreyer's note in the Scientific Papers includes the following comment: "H did not observe the nebula in the centre of the field, but applied a correction of -0.7 minutes of time, which appears to have been too small." In the 1912 Monthly Notices list of corrections, he adds, "The identity with 6052 is certain." WH's declination is the same as Marth's, whose RA is very good, too. ===== NGC 6065 and NGC 6066. When Swift finally got around to publishing these two (in his 9th list), he interchanged the declinations. Dreyer noticed this and commented on it in the notes to the first IC. Howe noticed the note, and reobserved the galaxies, showing that Swift's original positions (sent in a private communication to Dreyer) are correct. So, too, are Swift's descriptions, expanded somewhat for the 9th list. ===== NGC 6066. See NGC 6065. ===== NGC 6071 and NGC 6079 = IC 1200 are two of the brighter galaxies in a group or scattered cluster. Both were found by WH on 6 May 1791, and positions for both were refered to 13 UMi = SAO 008220. Neither place has a galaxy in it, but preceding each place by about 1 minute of time are two objects that fit Herschel's descriptions and declinations. Dreyer mentions this in his 1912 edition of WH's complete papers, and corrects the position of NGC 6079 in the IC2 notes, curiously leaving NGC 6071 unannotated. Dreyer also notes in his edition of WH's complete papers that if another star in the sweep (G.2091 = SAO 016305) is used instead of 13 UMi as the comparison, then the positions agree "well" with Bigourdan. Well .... Bigourdan's places are excellent, but Herschel's positions are still five arcmin away, and the large RA error in the NGC is traded for a large error in declination. (There is, by the way, a 10 second error in Bigourdan's listed RA for his comparison star for NGC 6071, perhaps a typo.) In any event, Herschel's relative position between the two galaxies is accurate as are his descriptions, so there is no uncertainty about the identifications once the systematic errors are removed. However, the poor NGC position for NGC 6079 led Swift to believe that it was a previously unknown nebula when he ran across it in August of 1888. He did in fact find a "new" object nearby, IC 1201, but incorrectly refers to it as the "north-following of 2" when it is actually south, as his surprisingly good position makes clear. The "south-preceding of 2" (which is actually north; again, his position is good), NGC 6079 = IC 1200 is otherwise well-described by him, including a "star 12th mag pretty close south." (His description of IC 1201 is similarly unambiguous: "double star near points to it." All three stars are in GSC.) Finally, Dreyer suggests that IC 1200 might be the same object as Bigourdan 207. This, however, is IC 1204 (which see), a galaxy north-preceding NGC 6091 by a few arcmin. Bigourdan's positions for both of these are also spot on. ===== NGC 6079 = IC 1200, which see. Also see NGC 6071. ===== NGC 6081 = IC 1202, which see. ===== NGC 6082 may be IC 4597. If so, JH's position is 2 minutes of time too small, and 8 arcmin too far north. In SGC, I made the object identical with five faint stars. Now, 20 years later, I do not see any obvious asterism of five stars near JH's place unless it is the asterism at 16 12 13.2, -34 06 30. Wolfgang chose a triple star 4 seconds of time on east. JH's description is copied accurately into NGC (in CGH, he says "25 arcsec" rather than "S") and the declination is appropriate for the sweep. All in all, this one is a bit of a mystery. I've listed the IC identity in the Table for lack of anything better. ===== NGC 6091. See IC 1204. ===== NGC 6092 is a double star at Bigourdan's place. ===== NGC 6111 is not IC 1210. In a note in IC1, Dreyer says, "In Swift's list IX, the declination for 1890 is given as +63 32.6. It was 62 deg in the MS. communication sent me in 1887." That the more northerly declination is correct is confirmed by the note in Swift's published paper (but not carried over into the NGC) "Double star near south points to it." Unfortunately, the incorrect declination in Swift's letter to Dreyer has led to two incorrect identifications for the number. The first came from Bigourdan -- his "corrected" position quoted in the IC2 notes is for a star. The second came from the modern catalogues which equated the number with a galaxy that Swift also coincidentally discovered, IC 1210 (it was independently found by Bigourdan, presumeably while searching for N6111). In any case, the two numbers apply to two separate objects. ===== NGC 6122. Even though Bigourdan's description for this galaxy is hardly appropriate ("vF, R, no N"; the object may be very faint, but it is nearly edge-on, and has a very bright nucleus), his position -- with the minutes of declination corrected in the IC2 Notes -- falls within 3 arcsec of the object. There can be no doubt about the identity. ===== NGC 6125 = NGC 6127 = NGC 6128. There are only two galaxies in this area (the other is NGC 6130), but four NGC numbers. NGC 6125 = H II 810 is the brighter of the two, so is almost certainly the galaxy that WH saw, though he must have made an error of 20 arcmin in reading the NPD (see Dreyer's note in the Herschel Papers, 1912). Herschel's original NPD is coincidentally identical to that of NGC 6130; this has led Reinmuth to suggest that NGC 6125 = NGC 6130. But the RA's are 51 seconds different, and Dreyer does not mention any problem with the RA's in Herschel's sweep. Dreyer's conclusion that the minutes of NPD recorded by Herschel (59) should be 39 is the most reasonable explanation. Swift has two objects near the correct place for the brighter galaxy, both from his 4th list, but found about a week apart on 28 June and 6 July in 1886. The descriptions of these two are similar ("pF, vS, R" and "pF, pS, R, BM"), and also agree with Herschel's description ("pF, pS, lE"). Therefore, I am almost certain that the three observations all refer to the same galaxy. A third object found by Swift, also on 28 June 1886, is preceded by a bright star (SAO 29889) that he noted in his description; this verifies the identification as NGC 6130. The star is not mentioned by Herschel, further evidence that he saw the brighter northern galaxy and not this one. ===== NGC 6127 = NGC 6128 = NGC 6125, which see. ===== NGC 6128 = NGC 6127 = NGC 6125, which see. ===== NGC 6130 is the fainter of a pair of galaxies. See NGC 6125 = NGC 6127 = NGC 6128 which is the brighter. ===== NGC 6132 = IC 4602, which see. ===== NGC 6133 may be the triple star listed in the table; this is near Swift's place, and it may be close enough together to have been mistaken for a nebula by him. It may also be CGCG 276-012, but this is mere guesswork. Swift has not left us much to go on -- the NGC description is copied correctly from his original list. Of the three other galaxies found the same night by Swift, NGC 6262 (which see) is also missing. NGC 6206 and NGC 6279 are close to their nominal positions, with no significant systematic offset. ===== NGC 6135 may be CGCG 320-015. The bright central part of the galaxy fits Swift's description, and there are two stars near it. However, the position is 4.4 minutes of time and 5 arcmin off, so I am not convinced that this is the correct object. The double star that Wolfgang chose is probably too faint to be Swift's object. Since I don't see anything else in the area that might be Swift's nebula, I've put the CGCG object in the Table with a question mark. ===== NGC 6138 = NGC 6363. I had earlier thought that N6138 might be one of the galaxies in the northwestern part of Abell 2199 near NGC 6145 and NGC 6146. Stephan has clearly misidentified his comparison star: he calls it "Arg. Z. +41 deg 2821" which I take to be BD +41 deg 2821. But that is one hour on east from the position Stephan gives for his comparison star, and there is no star near his position. However, in his introduction to his re-reduction of all of Stephan's observations, published in 1916, Esmiol mentions that NGC 6138 is the same nebula as NGC 6263. Because the other case that he mentions in the same sentence (NGC 983 = NGC 1002) is clearly true, I had thought that we could also accept this one as given. However, Steve Gottlieb and Albert Highe followed up on this and found that Stephan's implied offsets don't match any nearby star for NGC 6263 while they do for NGC 6363. So, Esmiol's note, N6138 = N6263, is a misprint and should read N6138 = N6363. I'm grateful to Steve and Albert for pointing this out. I also thank Jim Caplan at Marseilles Observatory for sending Esmiol's introduction and several pages of his tables; these have helped with various of Stephan's observations. ===== NGC 6141 is a faint galaxy at Bigourdan's measured offset. The NGC position, correctly copied from the Comptes Rendus article, is 3 arcmin to the south. It may result from an inaccurate estimated position for the comparison star. This might also be IC 4606 (which see), but its position is well off that of the object that Finlay saw. ===== NGC 6144 may also be IC 4606, which see for the story. ===== NGC 6145. See NGC 6138 and NGC 6147. ===== NGC 6146. See NGC 6138 and NGC 6147. ===== NGC 6147 is the middle (and faintest) of a line of three galaxies including N6145 and N6146 (the brightest). LdR's diagram shows all three, as well as another fainter galaxy that he mistook as a star. ===== NGC 6151 is an asterism of 8-10 faint stars at JH's position. It is positively identified by his comment that it "... is pointed to by 2 small stars 9m and 14m; the *9m is the only one of that magnitude within 6 arcmin." ESO mistakenly chose a very faint galaxy well east of JH's position, which is not only very good, but was copied correctly into the NGC. ===== NGC 6164 and NGC 6165 are the two brightest lobes of the bipolar nebula associated with HD 148937, a hot, young, active star. These nebulae used to be called "planetaries", but we now know them to be the result of energetic winds from young, massive stars, rather than the dying gasps of dwarf stars like the Sun. These two fairly bright patches of ionized gas neatly flank the HD star. Deep exposures show more, though fainter, nebulosity closer to the star. JH picked these up in South Africa, and noted the star as a double. If it is, it is a close double, not resolved on the short-exposure V plate scanned for the DSS. ===== NGC 6145. See NGC 6144. ===== NGC 6166 has been a thorn in the side for cataloguers since Holmberg included it in his multiple galaxy list in 1937. While there is no problem with the identification of N6166 itself, it is the brightest in Abell 2199, and is also composed of several interacting galaxies. Briefly, Holmberg's companions are not part of the galaxy itself, but are separate galaxies in the cluster surrounding N6166; all are 2-3 arcmin away, and all have magnitudes around B = 15.5 to 16. None of them are in RC3. On the other hand, Minkowski found in the late 50's that N6166 is itself made up of several components (see his classic paper on the system in AJ 66, 558, 1961). The three brightest are easily visible on the POSS1 prints, while the fourth is almost lost in the overexposed blur of the second. These are all within 5 or 10 arcsec of the "center" of N6166. The first three had separate entries in RC1, and the fourth is mentioned in the notes (the RC1 notes are wrong when they say that these are the Holmberg companions), but since they are clearly parts of the main galaxy itself, we dropped them from RC2 and RC3. Their positions are (measured by me with respect to 2 nearby GSC objects, one a galaxy, the other a star): Component RA (1950) Dec A 16 26 55.3 +39 39 37 B 16 26 56.2 +39 39 42 C 16 26 56.0 +39 39 35 D 16 26 56.4 +39 39 39 For the entire N6166 complex, GSC has: A - D 16 26 55.57 +39 39 37.9 which is just about what a magnitude weighted mean of my individual measures would give. Unfortunately, RNGC followed RC1, but (of course!) managed to confuse the identifications and did not give the Holmberg letters for the individual objects. I've also found in my copy of MCG the identifications that we had adopted before we sorted out the mess then. I've put them in square brackets because they were never published -- by us, at least! -- and shouldn't be. But if one were going to assign suffixes based on the Holmberg list, and wanted to make these suffixes similar to the others in use (starting with capital A rather than little b), then these are the suffixes that would be assigned. I think that this is what RNGC was trying to do. Anyhow, here are the correct identifications for the five Holmberg galaxies: Ho 751 BO MCG +7-34- RNGC CGCG [RC2 1st cut] a 1 60 6166 224-039 [N6166] b 24 50 6166D --- [N6166A] c 53 76 6166B 224-045 [N6166B] d 15 48 6166C --- [N6166C] e 12 56 6166A --- [N6166D] The "BO" numbers are from a paper by Harvey Butcher and Gus Oemler in which they give positions, magnitudes, and colors for nearly 200 galaxies in the cluster (ApJS 57, 665, 1985). In addition, there are two Zwicky compact galaxies nearby: I Zw 153 No. 1 = BO 61, and I Zw 153 No. 2 = BO 95. ===== NGC 6168 is probably CGCG 109-028 with a 1m 30s error in Swift's RA (the Dec is close). He has a faint star at the preceding end of the galaxy, but the star is actually at the following end. Because of these two problems, I'm not completely convinced that this identity is the correct one, but there are no other galaxies in the area that come as close to matching Swift's description. ===== NGC 6170 = NGC 6176. Swift's RA for NGC 6170 is 40 seconds of time off, but his description of the star field is accurate: "... in vacancy; many pB sts south." The declination is accurate, too, so there is little doubt about the identity, first suggested in RNGC. ===== NGC 6172 = IC 1213. Stephan's position is 10 minutes of time too large due to a misprint in his paper in AN 2661. The position for his comparison star is correctly given, however, and identifies it as SAO 141069. Once the correction is made, it's clear that N6172 is IC 1213. RC3 is correct for a change. ===== NGC 6173. See NGC 6174. ===== NGC 6174 is one of three nebulae found by Lord Rosse in 1849 while he was observing NGC 6173 (h 1962 = H III 640), and is the only one of the three included in the GC and NGC. JH took the observation from LdR's 1861 paper which lists only the three nebulae in the area found by JH, plus a terse comment "Another nearby." LdR's 1880 monograph has a fuller description of the observations, as well as a sketch of three of the nebulae. While the sketch is not labeled, it is clear from the descriptions that the one shown in the upper left is NGC 6173. A double nebula is directly north at a distance, estimated in the sketch, of 6 arcmin; while the third is an estimated 8 arcmin "east" of the second. The direction is in quotes since the diagram does not fit the sky unless LdR (or Dreyer, who prepared the monograph) got the direction wrong. Normally, the arrows in the diagrams point to the east; in this case, it must be west. LdR has another observation and sketch in 1851 which confirms the three sketched in 1849. The fourth nebula is "About 15 arcmin following and 3 arcmin north of this [N6173] there is a new neb, vF, gbM." There are no galaxies in that location that LdR might have seen -- but there is one 15 arcmin preceding and 3 arcmin north that fits his description. This is another indication that the east/west directions in this observation have been reversed. Dreyer added a note to the NGC: "Second of 3, forming a rectangular triangle, the 2 others being assumed to be h1962 [N6173] and h1963 [N6175], but the identity of the group is doubtful." Dreyer's note is incorrect in making two of the nebulae identical to JH's; only one is. The other two are "novae." LdR's final observation from 1860 suggests that he saw N6175 ("... an E neb, with a * close to f end, and either a knot or a * in p end"), but then concludes, "Found no other nebulae near. Twilight troublesome." Perhaps the last two words explain the lack of additional nebulae, though N6175 is in the midst of a cloud of rather faint galaxies in the outskirts of Abell 2199. So, we have a problem: three new nebulae found by LdR, but only one NGC number for them. Several sources have taken the double nebula north of N6173 as N6174. I am reluctant to do this as Dreyer called N6174 only "vF" making no mention of the duplicity. Of the two nebulae north and west of N6173, I favor calling the brightest of these (which is also the closest to N6173) N6174. LdR observed and sketched this twice, whereas he has only one observation of the other. ===== NGC 6175. See NGC 6174. ===== NGC 6176 = NGC 6170, which see. ===== NGC 6187. There is a faint possibility that this is also NGC 6191. See that for more. ===== NGC 6189. This may be NGC 6191, too. See that for more. ===== NGC 6190. Is this possibly NGC 6191, too? See that for more. ===== NGC 6191 is not to be found at its nominal place. There are several other bright galaxies in the area, however, that Swift might have picked up. Possibilities include NGC 6187, N6189, or N6190. N6187 has the two stars preceding that Swift noted in his description, but it is the faintest and smallest galaxy of the candidates. In addition, it has a bright star (SAO 29975) 3.5 arcmin north that Swift surely would have noted. N6189 fits Swift's description best -- though the two stars are following rather than preceding as Swift notes them -- but is 50 arcmin north of his position. N6190 is 20 arcmin south, and forms a rather large equilateral triangle with two stars west and northwest. Another possibility is UGC 10271. That is 20 min 30 sec preceding Swift's position, matches his declination and description, and has the two stars preceding. If that is the galaxy Swift saw, he clearly made a transcription error in his RA. All in all, several candidates, but no clear winner. ===== NGC 6194 is the brightest of a group of galaxies also including NGC 6196, which see for the story. ===== NGC 6196 = IC 4615, NGC 6197 = IC 4616, and NGC 6199. N6196 is the second brightest of a small group of galaxies headed up by NGC 6194 (discovered by John Herschel). Marth's discovery positions for N6196 and N6197 are 38 seconds of time preceding and 1.3 arcmin north of the true positions. If this same offset applies to NGC 6199, then one of the two stars near the resulting position is likely the object that Marth saw. Though I pointed to the brighter of the two during preparation of RC2 as N6199, it has m = 12.0 in GSC which would almost surely make it unmistakeably a star in Laselle's 48-inch telescope. Thus, I now feel N6199 is more likely to be the fainter (m = 14.8 in GSC), though the position is further off (about 30 arcsec, compared to about 15 arcsec) from Marth's (corrected) position. Where did the IC objects come from? During his survey of the NGC nebulae, Bigourdan of course could not locate either N6196 or N6197 at their catalogued positions -- his estimated positions given under these numbers refer to stars. However, he did find five other nebulae in the area (B209, B324, B325, B425 and B426), and made micrometric observations of the three brightest of these. It is clear, even in Bigourdan's own notes, that B209 (the brightest) is NGC 6194, though he somehow got the position (from Schultz) incorrect (his position and Schultz's original position agree to within 10 arcsec). The other two measured nebulae have, as mentioned above, identical offsets from Marth's positions, so it is also clear that B325 = IC 4615 = NGC 6196, and B426 = IC 4616 = NGC 6197. Bigourdan searched in vain, however, for NGC 6199 at Marth's position. It's a bit surprising that he did not make the connection between the two brighter galaxies and his own, and thus search near the offset for N6199. Two other "nebulae" in Bigourdan's group had only estimated positions by him: B324 = IC 4614, and B425 = IC 4613. IC 4614 is a galaxy, but there is nothing near his position for IC 4613. See that number for further discussion of this group. ===== NGC 6197 = IC 4616. See NGC 6196. ===== NGC 6199 is probably a star. See NGC 6196. ===== NGC 6202 may be the same galaxy as NGC 6226. The description fits, there is a star near following, and the declinations are the same. The problem, of course, is the seven minute RA difference. This would not be the only large RA error in Swift's lists, of course, but it still prevents a positive identification. All in all, 9 July 1886 was not a good night for Lewis Swift. Of the three nebulae he found that night, we can now pretty surely identify only N6170 (which see). N6135 (which also see) and N6202 are far enough from Swift's positions that we will probably never know for sure which nebulae Swift actually saw. ===== NGC 6206 = IC 1227, which see. Also see NGC 6133 and NGC 6262. ===== NGC 6211 and NGC 6213 are the southern-most two of a line of four galaxies stretching southwest to northeast (the other two are CGCG 299-018 and -019, not in NGC). Swift found these in June of 1887 and sent them directly to Dreyer who included them in NGC from Swift's letters. Swift published the discoveries a few years later in his 9th list. His RAs are 15-20 seconds of time too small, but Dreyer included Bigourdan's corrections in the IC2 notes. Bigourdan's published RAs are within two seconds for each object, and his offsets, if re-reduced using a modern position for his reference star, would agree with modern positions. ===== NGC 6213. See NGC 6211. ===== NGC 6216 = NGC 6222. JH recorded the cluster on four different sweeps. On three of those (NGC 6216), his RA is accurate. However, the fourth sweep (NGC 6222) has the RA 1 min 20 sec following; the Dec is the same. The description for N6222 fits N6216, and there is only a Milky Way star field at N6222's position. The identification, adopted in RNGC and ESO, is pretty sure. ===== NGC 6219. Aside from an error of 27 seconds of time in the RA, Marth's position and description fit the galaxy well. He claims to have seen it on more than one night (it is marked "verified" in his table), so I'm a bit surprised that the RA is off so much. ===== NGC 6222 = NGC 6216, which see. ===== NGC 6226 may also be NGC 6202, which see. ===== NGC 6227 is described by JH as "A star 5m in a great cluster, or an immensely rich milky way patch." The star is SAO 227313, and it is superposed on a rich part of the Milky Way, just as JH saw it. There is a good scattering of stars between 5th and 10th magnitude within a degree or two following JH's star -- they stand out well on the Southern Sky Survey film. There are two major clumps of stars here: the southern one surrounds NGC 6231, while the northern clump is Collinder 316; Trumpler 24 is apparently a concentration in the northeastern part of Cr 316. IC 4628, a diffuse nebula, is on to the northeast of Tr 24. This whole region may be JH's "great cluster." The area to the west of SAO 227313 is heavily populated with stars of the 9th and 10th magnitude, but does not stand out as much as the areas to the east. Following JH, I've adopted the position of the SAO star. Brent Archinal alerted me to the information about the clusters in the area. Here is his note: I think there are two possibilities for this object. For one, I looked at a DSS image here (via Skyview) and there's nothing really obvious. However, with histogram equalization of a 30' and also a 90' field, there is a brightening of the Milky Way around the star of about 15-18' in diameter. I think it's most reasonable to assume that this is what JH saw. On the other hand, could it be that JH was refering to the _really big_ 3 degree grouping of stars here, including Cr 316, Tr 24, NGC 6231, and Zeta-1 and -2 Sco? On a particularly transparent night a few years ago (from here in Virginia), I saw this area well for the first time as it crossed the meridian. This is a very spectacular binocular grouping of objects. Offhand, I would think that if he was refering to such a large grouping he'd describe it better or say something clearer about the size, so I think this is an unlikely identification -- but perhaps still possible. One identification I would reject is that this is one of the individual clusters, such as NGC 6231, Tr 24, or Cr 316. The 5th magnitude star in question is on the edge of Cr 316, but this group doesn't stand out well at all, at least in the 90' field. Tr 24 is too far to the NE (part of Cr 316 probably), and NGC 6321 is quite obvious to the SE and doesn't fit the description at all. None of this information corresponds with the observation by Hirsch reported in the Monograph, but he may have just been looking at a scattered group of stars here, if not Cr 316 or Tr 24. The comment by Harrington is probably copied from Hirsch (a number of Harrington's descriptions are similar to Webb Society descriptions, but without credit), and the information from Burnham, SkyAtlas 2000.0, and Houston does not seem useful. Anyway, since JH doesn't describe any resolved stars here other than the 5th magnitude one, and doesn't make any remarks that would indicate the whole 3 degree wide grouping here, the Milky Way brightening seems the best candidate for this object. It would be nice to have some visual confirmation of this particular area to help confirm this, though. Observers, to your eyepieces! ===== NGC 6231. See NGC 6227. ===== NGC 6232. See NGC 6237. ===== NGC 6236. See NGC 6237. ===== NGC 6237 and NGC 6245 may be duplicate observations of NGC 6232 and NGC 6236, respectively. Or they may be stars. Or, they may simply be "not found." Whatever the case, these are two of a group of four nebulae that Lewis Swift found on the night of 28 June 1884; the other two are NGC 6232 and NGC 6236. Over a year later, on 11 August 1885, Swift found another nebula, NGC 6248, about half a degree south of his group. There were no other observations before Dreyer compiled the NGC, so he included all five. Looking at the area on the Sky Survey prints, we now see only three galaxies here that are bright enough that Swift could have seen them. These are NGC 6232, 6236, and 6248. Swift's RA's for the three are systematically too small by 20 to 25 seconds of time, but his declinations are very good. Looking at his positions for the missing two objects shows that the declination of NGC 6237 is close to that of NGC 6232, and that for NGC 6245 is similarly close to that for NGC 6236. In addition, his RA's for the two missing objects each have roughly the same offset from the RA's for the same two galaxies (32 seconds in the first case, 48 seconds in the other). So, I wonder if NGC 6237 = NGC 6232 and NGC 6245 = NGC 6236 -- in spite of the fact that Swift found all of the objects on the same night, and explicitly noted "1st of 4," "2nd of 4," etc, in the descriptions of all four objects. Keep in mind his method of finding positions: centering the object in the eyepiece, and reading the setting circles. Did he perhaps bump the telescope or setting circles inadvertantly after reading positions for the first two objects? Still, he used a very large field eyepiece, so it may be that he mistook stars near the galaxies as other nebulae. Or, he may have seen reflections of stars out of the field and mistook them as nebulae. Or, his eyes may have played tricks on him if he was tired. I favor the jarred telescope/setting circle hypothesis, but would not bet even a nickel on its being right. Whatever happened, the two objects do not exist, so I've simply entered them as "Not found" in the table. ===== NGC 6240 = IC 4625, which see. There is no problem in the NGC position, but the IC position -- from Barnard -- is a few arcmin off. The identity is clinched nevertheless by Barnard's note of a star near north-following. ===== NGC 6245, not found. See NGC 6237. ===== NGC 6247 = IC 1233, which see. ===== NGC 6248. See NGC 6237. ===== NGC 6262 is another of Swift's missing objects. He recorded this one on the night of 23 October 1886 when he found three other nebulae: N6133 (which see), N6206, and N6279. Only the last two are anywhere near Swift's places, and they show no systematic offset that might help us with N6262. His description is also unhelpful (eeeF, pS, R, eee diff). Two possibilities are in the area: CGCG 299-039 and CGCG 277-010. The first would require a 5 minute and 10 arcmin error in Swift's position, the second a 1.4 minute and 1 degree error. The first is the brighter of the two, and the digit errors make it the more likely candidate. However, he could have seen either object, but without further evidence, I'm not going to do more than note them as possibilities. ===== NGC 6263 is not NGC 6138 (which see) as I had earlier supposed. N6263 is an innocent bystander, the victim of a misprint in M. Esmiol's Introduction to his complete collection of Stephan's observations. The story is under N6138. ===== NGC 6270. Here is a case where Stephan's micrometric position falls exactly on the correct galaxy (the NGC position is about 20 arcsec too far north since the position for Stephan's comparison star is similarly off), yet LEDA nearly 20 arcmin south-southwest. There was no justification for this that I can see, and I'm mystified at their decision. Whatever happened, the identity is clear and Stephan's position is within three arcsec of the modern position from DSS. ===== NGC 6276 = IC 1239, NGC 6277 (a star), and NGC 6278. William Herschel found one galaxy here. It, as one might expect, is the brightest of the group, NGC 6278. Sixty years later, Albert Marth found two other nebulous objects near Herschel's object. Shortly thereafter, Stephan discovered two nebulous objects, and also included Herschel's object in his list, correcting Herschel's inaccurate position. However, Stephan did not mention Marth's two objects; I don't know if he was aware of Marth's list or not. Dreyer, faced with this rather confusing array of five positions, asked to see Marth's observing records. These apparently did not reach Dreyer until after the NGC had gone to press, as he added a note "in press" to the NGC that Stephan had seen only one of Marth's objects. The positions are close enough that Dreyer was able to correctly identify the object (NGC 6276) as m328. m327 is north preceding about three arcminutes, and was missed by Stephan. In the NGC note, Dreyer added that the missing object should have been inserted in the NGC immediately following NGC 6275. Dreyer indeed added it later to the first Index Catalogue as IC 1238. But when we turn to the sky, there are only two galaxies here bright enough to have been seen by the visual observers (a third, later catalogued as UGC 10650, has too low a surface brightness to have been picked up). The brightest is obviously NGC 6278, but what is the other? Fortunately, Stephan's micrometric position is pretty good, being off only by the amount that his comparison star's catalogued position is off (about half an arcminute). This correctly identifies the second galaxy as NGC 6276. If we then correct Stephan's position for NGC 6277 for the comparison star's offset, we find that this object is in fact a star. Assuming that Marth's two positions are in good relative agreement, we can pin down IC 1238 as a double star. The confusion crept into Bigourdan's observations, too. He correctly identified NGC 6278, but misidentified a star as NGC 6277, and actually published NGC 6276 as a "nova" in his second list of new nebulae. He later realized his mistake, and correctly equated the NGC object with his "nova" (which had by then received the number IC 1239) in his final published list of observations. His observation of "NGC 6277" is interesting in that there is a faint galaxy just a few arcseconds north-following the star he measured. Did he perhaps glimpse the galaxy, but then measure the brighter star? Sulentic, with three NGC numbers in hand, and with three relatively large galaxies in sight on the Sky Survey, misidentifies UGC 10650 as RNGC 6276, and assigns the number RNGC 6277 to NGC 6276. NGC 6278's correct identification survived even into the RNGC. ===== NGC 6277 is a star. See NGC 6276. ===== NGC 6278 is the brightest galaxy of a group. See NGC 6276. ===== NGC 6279. See NGC 6133, NGC 6262, and IC 4636. N6279 figures in the identification (or not!) of all of these. ===== NGC 6293. See NGC 6294. ===== NGC 6294 is a double star northeast of NGC 6293, a bright globular cluster. It is offset +5.5 seconds and +0.5 arcmin from the cluster; JH's positions for the two objects, both seen the same sweep, lead to offsets of +7 seconds and +0.1 arcmin. Howe's measurement of the stars' separation (PA = 315 deg, distance = 8 arcsec) is correct. Both stars have several faint companions -- presumably members of N6293 -- merged into their DSS images. ===== NGC 6297 = NGC 6298. Though Swift claims that N6297 is the "sp of 2" and N6298 is the "nf of 2", there is only one galaxy here. He discovered it on two different nights (8 July 1885, and three weeks later on 1 Aug 1885), and apparently misled into believing he'd found two objects by the difference in his brightness estimates ("pB" and "vF", respectively), added the directional indicators during the publication process. At least, that is my theory -- he has certainly done that in other cases. An interesting sidelight: Bigourdan failed to find N6298 on three nights, but on those same three nights, measured N6297 16 different times using two different comparison stars. This may well be a record number of observations by Bigourdan for a non-descript 14th magnitude galaxy. I'd be interested in knowing why he did so much work on this -- I can't find a clue in his published data. ===== NGC 6298 = NGC 6297, which see. ===== NGC 6330 is half a degree north of Swift's position. The galaxy there (CGCG 321-013) matches his description, and his note "... nearly between 2 stars" fits, too. Though I've not checked all the history on this object, I think that CGCG is the first to suggest the identity. Bigourdan's observation, mentioned in the IC2 notes, is for a star 36 seconds east and 1.3 arcmin north of Swift's nominal position. ===== NGC 6335. JH says of this, "The whole lower end of the zone is strongly affected with nebulous patches," and gives only an approximate position for it. Though included in Cederblad's catalogue of bright diffuse nebulae, there is no bright nebulosity in the area. Instead, the Southern Sky Survey films show a patchy field of star clouds, defined by the dust of dark nebulae. It is apparently these star clouds that JH saw in the spring of 1837, giving him the impression of patchy nebulosity all through his field. (Three years earlier, he happened on the same field, giving a position then about 5 minutes east; this has become NGC 6360, which see.) I've adopted the approximate center of the brightest patch of stars nearest JH's position as the position for NGC 6335. This is about a minute west of his place which lands in a relatively poor field -- in other words, in the midst of a dust cloud. ===== NGC 6344 is a double star at Lohse's position. In appearance, it matches several other of the "nebulae" found by him with the 15.5-inch (e.g. NGC 5884, also a double star, which see), and is very close to his nominal position. There is a faint galaxy about an arcminute to the north that has been taken as N6344, but it is certainly too faint to have been seen by Lohse. ===== NGC 6347 = IC 1253, which see. ===== NGC 6360. As with NGC 6335, which see, there is no nebulosity making up this "object." Instead, JH saw the bright background of the Milky Way broken up into many patches of nebulous light by the dark nebulae lacing the area with dust. The position I've adopted for NGC 6360 is about a minute of time west and 7-8 arcmin north of JH's position (like N6335, in an area pretty well covered by dust). This is the brightest cloud of stars in the area, approximately 12 arcmin across. JH's comment, "The nebula is in patches of very great extent," makes it clear that this particular cloud is not the only one he saw in the area. ===== NGC 6363 is also = NGC 6138, which see. ===== NGC 6374 = NGC 6383. JH has only one observation (in Sweep 794) of N6374, and I believe that is a duplicate of an "Omitted Observation ..." (also in Sweep 794) for N6383 listed at the end of his CGH Observations. He has two other observations of N6383, both on different nights, but with accordant descriptions. In the single observation leading to the NGC number 6374, JH identifies the bright star in the middle of the cluster as "B[risbane] 6125". I suspect this is the correct identification, but will have to check. If the number is correct, then it is SAO 208977 = HD 159176. In any event, there is little doubt that the two NGC numbers refer to the same cluster. JH probably made a bookkeeping error somewhere along the line that led him to duplicate the observation in Sweep 794. ===== NGC 6375. See NGC 6564. ===== NGC 6379. See NGC 6564. ===== NGC 6383 = NGC 6374, which see. ===== NGC 6393 and NGC 6394 are a pair of objects found 7 July 1885 by Lewis Swift. Though he describes the two as equally faint, the southern of the two objects on the sky (more than 6 arcmin south of his position) is much fainter than the northern (3.5 arcmin south of the nominal position). I'm not convinced that Swift could have seen it. In fact, he did not find it again. When he went over the field on 15 June 1890, he recovered only one of the galaxies. This time, his position was virtually identical to the one that he gave for N6393, leading Dreyer to omit it from IC1. The position is also close to the true position for the brighter galaxy. This brighter galaxy has been taken by MCG and CGCG as N6393 based on the position. However, Swift's description does not match the field. Swift says, "vvF, pS, R; 2 B sts nr n; s of 2." The comment about the two bright stars north matches the fainter southern galaxy, but not the brighter northern one. For his northern object, Swift says, "vvF, pS, R; 2 sts point to it, the nearer is D; the other and the neb. are equally distant from the D *; n of 2." For the record, his 1890 observation reads, "eeF, pS, cE; B * nearly obscures it; between it and a F*, nearer the latter." This matches what is on the sky pretty well (his double star in the first observation is the "B *" in the second, and the other two stars are there also), so I have taken NGC 6394 as the northern galaxy. I have also tentatively assigned NGC 6393 to the very faint southern object since there is no other candidate object nearby. There are many other galaxies within one or two degrees, but none have the stars near that Swift describes. Whatever he saw, it clearly needs visual confirmation. ===== NGC 6394 is probably not NGC 6393, which see. ===== NGC 6406 is a double star at Bigourdan's place. He has four micrometric observations of it, so there is no doubt about the identification. He notes a nearby star of magnitude 12.2 at PA = 265 degrees, distance = 1.2 arcmin. The position angle is actually about 95 degrees. I suspect that Bigourdan's value ought to read 85 degrees. ===== NGC 6410 is one of the few double stars from Lewis Swift's list of "nebulae" that we can confidently say that he saw. Though he believed it to be an "eeF, S, R" nebula, his additional notes "nearly between two stars; GC 4320 [NGC 6411] near north-following" make it clear that he was indeed observing the double star. His position is not too bad, but is still far enough off (over two arcminutes) that -- without his additional notes on the field -- we could not otherwise identify his object. ===== NGC 6411, found by d'A, was helpful in pinning down the identification of NGC 6410 (which see). ===== NGC 6415 is nothing more than a Milky Way field. There is no nebula obviously involved in spite of JH's brief description, "A great nebulous projection of the milky way [sic]." JH gives only an approximate RA. On the IIIa-J film, I make the RA a minute later, and the Dec 3-4 arcmin south. See NGC 6421 for more. ===== NGC 6416. See NGC 6421. ===== NGC 6419, 6420, 6422, and 6423. These were found by Lewis Swift on the nights of 1 and 17 August 1883. Because he recorded only two objects each night, I suspect that he saw the same two twice. If so, N6419 = N6423, and N6420 = N6422. His descriptions are similar enough that this is a distinct possibility. However, Bigourdan measured the four brightest galaxies in the field (there are at least six others brighter than about B = 16 nearby), and assigned the NGC numbers to them in RA order. This has the advantage of dishing out one number per galaxy, and of closely matching Swift's declinations. Swift's RAs, however, are too small by varying amounts (13 to 24 seconds of time). Also, if Bigourdan's suggested identifications are correct, then Swift's note of a "* near east" of N6423 should read, "* near north." Since Dreyer published Bigourdan's corrected positions (close to the real ones) in the IC2 notes, I'm going to accept Bigourdan's suggested identities, in spite of my reservations above. ===== NGC 6420. See NGC 6419. ===== NGC 6421 is a brighter patch in the Milky Way that matches JH's description and sketch pretty well. His position is pretty good, too. Note, however, that the NGC description (taken from GC) is wrong. The correct description, from the CGH Observations, should read something like "Cl, vL, r, connected to Milky Way." I suspect that the NGC description was copied by mistake from the CGH entry for h3702 = N6416. There is also a prime symbol missing from the 3702 in the JH column in the NGC. Neither this object nor N6415 were numbered in the CGH Observations, and JH does not have a note for either in GC indicating why he entered them there. Dreyer copied the entries unchanged into NGC, also without notes. ===== NGC 6422. See NGC 6419. ===== NGC 6423. See NGC 6419. ===== NGC 6427 = NGC 6431, which see. ===== NGC 6428 is a star. Bigourdan's position is midway between it and another star of similar magnitude, but his description mentions both objects and makes clear that he was measuring the northern of the pair: "In the neighborhood, I suspect several small stars, one of which is at PA = 195 deg, d = 8-10 arcsec." ===== NGC 6430 is CGCG 112-035. The description and declination fit well, and the RA is off by 38 seconds. Reinmuth has this as a chain of four stars, but the galaxy is clearly the object that Marth saw. ===== NGC 6431 = NGC 6427. Stephan misidentified his comparison star. Though he claims to have used BD +25 3330, the star he actually used is BD +25 3327. Applying his offsets to this star lead to a position within an arcsecond of the DSS position for the galaxy. ===== NGC 6437 is a star cloud in the Milky Way centered about 0.7 minutes preceding and 4 arcmin north of JH's approximate position. There is no nebulosity associated with it; the numerous faint stars in the area must have given the impression of nebulosity at the eyepiece during sweeping. ===== NGC 6439. I've used the finding chart in Steve Hynes book "Planetary Nebulae" to identify this planetary. Some lists have mistakenly pointed at the star about an arcminute to the north-northeast. ===== NGC 6444 is definitely OCl-1023 = Ru 132 as noted in ESO and by Brian Skiff. JH gives only an approximate position for the cluster, but calls it "A vfine L, rich sc cl of sts 12..13..m." The ESO position -- 40 seconds preceding and 2.5 arcmin north of JH's -- is good. ===== NGC 6448 is lost. It is the 60th entry in Swift's second list. Dreyer copied all of Swift's data exactly and correctly into the NGC. There are no galaxies in the area that might be Swift's object, and I can't find an obvious digit error that would lead to another (though I did not check for large errors, e.g. 10 degrees, 1 hour). Swift found no other nebulae the night of 16 July 1885, so we have no possible systematic offset to work from, either. ===== NGC 6450 (Swift II-61) is also lost. Dreyer copied the position correctly into NGC, but abbreviated Swift's description of the surrounding star field. Swift's full description is "vF, vS; B * f 8 seconds; bet 2 sts." There are several galaxies in the area that Swift could have seen, but none matching the pattern described by him. Howe also could not find the object, though he actually searched for it three nights, not just two as in Dreyer's IC2 note. ===== NGC 6455 may be the random clumping of Milky Way stars around SAO 209348 (this is about 50 seconds preceding JH's approximate position). JH, however, does not mention the bright star. His full description reads, "A very extensive nebulous clustering mass of the milky way [sic]. The stars [are] of excessive smallness, and infinite in number." ESO chooses a "concentration of stars" (not obvious to me) near JH's position, and Wolfgang Steinicke takes a small asterism of faint stars at 17 49.0 -35 27. I doubt that either of these could be JH's object. This is another case where a visual observation would be useful. ===== NGC 6456, 6463, 6470, 6471, 6472, and 6477. Here is another mess from Lewis Swift's 4th and 5th lists of nebulae. NGC 6463 and NGC 6470 were found on 9 June 1886, the remainder on 25 September 1886. All of Swift's positions fall within a group of (at least) eight galaxies. It's possible that Swift could have seen most of the objects, but only after seeing the DSS image from the POSS-II plate could I assign his numbers with any confidence to the galaxies. I also have to thank Brian Skiff for asking about the field; his questions forced a re-evaluation that I otherwise would not have made. The descriptions don't help much. All the galaxies are "eeeF, eS, R" or a close variation, and all are noted "v dif[ficult]" to "eee dif". Swift does mention that the preceding of the group is "bet[ween] 2 sts" -- but since the Galactic latitude is so low, there are enough stars around for that description to apply to virtually any of the galaxies in the group. Dreyer added the note "* nr" to N6471 and N6477; this is not in Swift's original paper, so it must be from a letter from Swift to Dreyer. In any event, there is not much to go on here that will help us assign the NGC numbers to the correct objects. If we make some reasonable assumptions -- 1) Swift saw the two brightest galaxies on his first sweep through the area, 2) he did in fact see all six 3.5 months later, and 3) his relative positions for the remaining four galaxies seen only the second night are more or less accurate -- then we can make a stab at some identifications. These are not certain by any means, and they do not agree with some previous identifications. However, they do make sense of Swift's data. On the first night, he saw the two brightest objects in the core of the group, N6463 and N6470. N6456 is reasonably isolated to the west of the core, and N6471 and N6472 flank N6470 in declination. They are also the brightest galaxies in the core after N6463 and N6470. It also is reasonable to suppose that both components of UGC 10973 contributed to the visual appearance of N6471, so I've listed both in the main table. I'm least certain about N6477, but Swift's observation places it following N6470/1/2, and between N6472 and N6470 in declination. The galaxy I've chosen matches these constraints -- but its position is still well off Swift's place. For reference, here is a table of B1950.0 positions, Swift's on the first line, and accurate positions on the second, of my suggested identifications. Object RA (Swift) Dec Discovered Other names and comments (Precise) Pos source V 76 17 42 29 +67 37.7 25 Sept 1886 CGCG 321-034 N6456 17 42 39.60 +67 36 48.6 GSC IV 55 17 43 44 +67 36.5 9 June 1886 CGCG 321-037 = MCG +11-21-022 N6463 17 43 42.27 +67 37 24.2 GSC IV 56 17 44 19 +67 37.8 9 June 1886 CGCG 321-039 = MCG +11-21-025 N6470 17 44 22.98 +67 38 18.3 GSC V 78 17 44 19 +67 36.4 25 Sept 1886 UGC 10973a = CGCG 321-038w = N6471w 17 44 20.89 +67 36 44.0 GSC = MCG +11-21-023 N6471e 17 44 26.06 +67 36 36.6 GSC UGC 10973b = CGCG 321-038e = = MCG +11-21-024 V 79 17 44 19 +67 39.9 25 Sept 1886 N6472 17 44 11.31 +67 38 58.5 NPM1 = NPM1G +67.0154 V 80 17 44 54 +67 39.2 25 Sept 1886 N6477: 17 44 38.38 +67 37 44.3 HCds Other possibilities: 17 43 16.26 +67 33 43.7 GSC Star superposed. 17 43 33.48 +67 40 17.4 GSC Extremely compact w vF arms; star superposed on nucleus? 17 44 51.37 +67 33 33.3 HCds ===== NGC 6461 is CGCG 340-017 (CGCG's guess -- CGCG 340-015 -- is wrong). The identity is clinched by Swift's description, "eF, pS, R; nr terminal * of 5 forming semi-circle." His RA is 12 seconds too large, and his declination 38 arcmin too small. ===== NGC 6463. See NGC 6456. ===== NGC 6465 is an asterism of 4-5 stars. Though well south of the equator, it was actually found by JH from Slough. He describes it only as "Suspected; small; twilight," but his position is very good. The identification was made by Howe who found the four brighter stars here on the second night he searched for the object. He describes the object as "... simply two doubles of mag. 12. In each pair, the distance is 4 arcsec, and the two pairs are 15 arcsec apart." In the DSS image, one of Howe's four stars is double, and there is a fifth star 29 arcsec north that might have added to the appearance of nebulosity in JH's sweep. ===== NGC 6466 is correctly identified in CGCG as CGCG 278-030. RC1 and RC2 followed Carlson who has incorrectly equated this to NGC 6478. Swift's full description pins down the correct object: "eF, vS, R; bet 2 sts which with 2 others form a cross like cross in Cygnus. Neb placed as gamma Cygni." The top of Swift's cross is to the west, and the galaxy is placed exactly as he says it is. ===== NGC 6467 and NGC 6468 may be identical -- but maybe not. Though Marth apparently found them on the same night (he gives a discovery date of 1864.42 for both), the positions are different by only one second of time, and the descriptions (vF, vS, lE and vF, S, R) could well be for the same object. His data are correctly copied into NGC -- and that is all the published evidence we have. There is only one galaxy here, and either of Marth's positions could apply to it. There is nothing within one second of it that Marth might have seen. Since NGC 6468 is nominally closer to the galaxy, it usually bears that name in the catalogues. There are two asterisms nearby (I called the triple star 12 seconds following Marth's position NGC 6468 earlier), but neither is within a second of time of the galaxy, so I doubt now that either is Marth's second object. Until more evidence surfaces, I'm tentatively listing the two entries as identical. But I'm also listing the asterisms, too. They are still possibilities, remote though they be. ===== NGC 6468. See NGC 6467. ===== NGC 6470. See NGC 6456. ===== NGC 6471. See NGC 6456. ===== NGC 6472. See NGC 6456. ===== NGC 6473 and NGC 6474 were both found on 22 July 1886 by Lewis Swift. However, there is only one galaxy near his position, though he clearly says he found two (there is a typo in the NGC description for N6474: for "n of 3", read "n of 2"). Swift's positions are separated by only 15 arcsec in declination, and his description for N6473 (eeF, S, R, s of 2) is not very helpful, even if it is short enough to have made it into NGC unchanged. However, his full description for N6474 is more interesting: "eF, pS, R; 3 sts in a line near and 3 others in a line point to it; e diff; n of 2." The three stars in a line near the galaxy are southeast of it, and the three stars pointing to it are to the northeast. This pins down NGC 6474 pretty well. The only thing close south of the galaxy is an 18th magnitude star that Swift could not have seen. However, to the northeast, about 30 arcseconds away, there is a 16th magnitude star that he might have seen. Is this NGC 6473? If so, Swift got his directions confused. He's done that before, so this star is a possibility for N6473. Bigourdan went further south in search of N6473. Four arcmin from Swift's place, Bigourdan found a triple star which he mistook for a nebula. He called it N6473 and measured it on two nights. On a third night, he measured another star which he thought was the same "nebula", but which he found later to be not just different, but uncatalogued as well. It has ended up with the number IC 4668 (which see). In any event, Bigourdan's triple is also a possibility for Swift's nebula. It would mean a 4 arcmin error in Swift's position, not too much of a stretch. ===== NGC 6474. Bigourdan switched his comparison star with that for IC 4668, which see. Once that is sorted out, the identity of I4668 becomes clear, and Bigourdan's position for N6474 falls within a few arcsec of the galaxy's nucleus. Also see NGC 6473 for yet another story. ===== NGC 6476 is a star cloud in the Milky Way centered about two arcmin east of JH's approximate position. In the CGH Observations, JH says "Nebula. No description. It is probably only a nebulous portion of the Milky Way." As with other star clouds that JH saw in this same part of the sky, there is no nebulosity associated with N6476, but the dense background of faint stars would have appeared faintly nebulous during a sweep. ===== NGC 6477. See NGC 6456. ===== NGC 6478 is not NGC 6466 (which see). Carlson incorrectly equates the two numbers, and RC1 and RC2 followed along. ===== NGC 6480 is a star cloud in the Milky Way closely matching JH's sketch in the CGH Observations. My estimated position for the center of the projection to the east is about 10 seconds of time west of JH's, but there is no doubt of the identity. ===== NGC 6481 is a line of four stars clearly identified by Peters's micrometric observation. Though his position is a few arcseconds east of the center of the line, the identity is certain. ===== NGC 6497 = NGC 6498. Swift found his 80th and 81st nebulae on 16 Sept and 26 Sept 1884, respectively. The positions are only 1 second of time and 32 arcsec apart, and the descriptions are close enough that the only galaxy in the area can match both. In particular, Swift says of N6497, "Close s of middle * of 3 in a line, middle * the fainter;" and of N6498, "B * nr; F * v nr." The middle star in the line is the "faint star very near," and the bright star is the eastern of the three stars. So, I'm almost certain that the two observations refer to the same object, and that Swift added the comments "np of 2" and "sf of 2" as he was preparing his first list for publication. ===== NGC 6498 = NGC 6497, which see. ===== NGC 6499 is a close double star. Discovered by Marth, he marked it "verified" in his list, so he saw it as nebulous at least twice. When the object was photographed at Heidelberg and Lick, the observers there found only a double star without nebulosity. That is how it appears today on the Palomar Surveys. Another faint star and 2-3 very faint stars just to the west may have given the appearance of nebulosity at the eyepiece. ===== NGC 6505. Is this possibly NGC 6534? See that for more. ===== NGC 6506. The position in the main table applies to a cluster just southwest of JH's place. However, he notes that it is extremely large, "filling many fields." So, his object may be the larger star cloud in which the smaller cluster sits. ===== NGC 6514. See NGC 6533. ===== NGC 6523 is the star-forming core of M8 at the heart of the bright northwestern part of the nebula. NGC 6526 (which see) is the southeastern part of the nebula, and NGC 6530 is the bright star cluster 10-12 arcmin following N6523. NGC 6533 (which see) applies to the entire M8 complex, and IC 1271 and IC 4678 (both of which see) apply to condensations in its eastern reaches. ===== NGC 6525. Though listed as "nonexistent" in RNGC, there is an obvious poor cluster of bright stars just where JH placed it. It covers about 10 arcmin, and has a tight core of half a dozen stars. The position I've given in the table is for this core. ===== NGC 6526 = H V 9 is probably the part of M8 southeast of the dark lane. The nebula sweeps on up to the northeast to encompass NGC 6530, the bright, well-known cluster in M8. WH found this the 22nd of May 1784, and measured the position with respect to 51 Ophiuchi. When re-reduced using the modern position for that star, WH's position for N6526 falls at 18 01 14, -24 27.6, well within the M8 complex. As Dreyer notes in the Herschel papers, the GC and NGC positions are one degree too far north due to an error by Caroline Herschel in her reduction of the position. WH describes V 9 only as "Large, extended, broad, milky figure." Thus, this could apply to any part of (or even all of) M8 (look at WH's second description of M20 = IV 41 for another almost discrepant description of the same object). Since this was apparently his first sweep across the area, and since we know his positions were rather error-prone at the time, I think that the object he saw was, in fact, M8. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, however, I think it fair to assign the NGC number, as I said above, to the southeastern section of the complex. See NGC 6533 for more. ===== NGC 6529 was apparently first seen by James Dunlop who claimed two observations of it. His description reads, "A pretty large faint nebula, round figure, 5' or 6' diameter, resolvable into very minute stars, with nebula remaining." Unlike most of Dunlop's nebulae, JH claims to have seen this one, though only once. He lists an estimated position that is close to Dunlop's and calls it "A large milky way patch, much compressed, one portion much more so." However, checking the position on the SERC IIIa-J film shows nothing more than a rather unremarkable part of the Milky Way. Nothing stands out that strikes me as something that would catch an observer's eye. Compare this to other Milky Way fields that have NGC numbers (e.g. NGC 6476 and NGC 6480) from JH's sweeps -- there is nothing obvious here. I've put the nominal position in the table. I also checked the other nebulae seen in the same sweep; all are at about the same declination, so there is no large error in that part of JH's observation. A large RA error is possible, but I found nothing in the obvious places (plus or minus one minute, ten minutes, etc.). Perhaps a visual observer can turn up something here. ===== NGC 6530 is part of M8. See NGC 6523, NGC 6526, and NGC 6533 for more. ===== NGC 6533 = M8 = H V 13. WH's position for this, reduced from the offsets published in the Scientific Papers is in a pretty empty patch of sky roughly 30 arcmin south of M8. He does give a pretty good description in his 1786 first catalogue, however. He observed it only one night, 12 July 1784: "Extensive milky nebulosity divided into 2 parts; the most northern above [larger than] 15 arcmin, the most southern followed by stars." What struck me about this was its uncanny similarity to his description of M8 given in his 1785 paper (which I unfortunately do not have a copy of), quoted by Kenneth Glyn Jones in his fine book on the Messier objects: "An extensive milky Nebulosity divided into two parts; the north being the strongest. Its extent exceeds 15 arcmin; the southern part is followed by a parcel of stars which I suppose to be the 8th of the Connaissance des Temps [i.e. M8]." WH's 1786 description reads like a simple condensation of his 1785 description. Is it therefore possible that H V 13 = N6533 is M8? WH's position doesn't encourage that interpretation. Both JH (in GC) and Dreyer (in WH's Scientific Papers which he edited in 1912) have notes about WH's problems determining the position -- as I've noted, that position is over 30 arcmin south-southeast of M8 in a barren patch of sky. But if WH was indeed looking at M8, is there any way that his offsets (4m 54s following, 38':: south of 5 Sagittarii) can be made to fit? Well, once I tracked down 5 Sgr (it is SAO 186074, not labeled as "5 Sgr" in Sky Catalogue 2000.0), it was clear that the NGC position was properly reduced (once the earlier bugs found by JH had been cleaned up. He says in GC that the offset as originally published in PT for 1786 -- 39' north -- is wrong.). Did WH observe any other nebulae that night? In particular, did he use that same comparison star? The answers are "Yes" to both questions. H V 10, H V 11, and H V 12, all = NGC 6514 = M20 = the well-known "Trifid Nebula" have a single position referred to that same star on that same night. When we reduce that position, we find that it is about 30 arcmin south-southeast of M20 in a barren patch of sky .... Yet there is no doubt that these three nebulae constitute M20 (along with IV 41); both JH and Dreyer accept that in GC and NGC. So what's going on? The short of it: WH may have misidentified his comparison star (but see also N6698, found the same night, referred to a different star). He probably used 4 Sgr = SAO 186061, rather than 5 Sgr as is printed. Once that correction is made, it's clear that NGC 6533 is, in fact, M8. WH's resultant position is about a minute of time following the brightest part of the nebula (N6523), but is more in line with the center of the entire complex as we see it on photographs. However, as Steve and I have noted before, WH's positions from these early runs of 1783 and 1784 have generally larger errors than his later positions -- he was still perfecting his observing techniques. The mystery here is this: if JH and Dreyer knew that H V 10-12 referred to the Trifid, why then did they not make the connection -- through the comparison star in common -- to the Lagoon as well? I don't see an answer to this in any of the papers I have in my collection. However, if there is any information in WH's 1785 paper that might shed some light on this, we should look at it again. M8 also encompasses several other NGC and IC objects: NGC 6523, NGC 6526, NGC 6530, IC 1271, and IC 4678, all of which see for more discussion. ===== NGC 6534 is probably lost, like so many other of Swift's nebulae. The galaxy that CGCG chooses (CGCG 322-022) is about 1.2 minutes of time preceding Swift's position, and 2.3 arcmin south. Furthermore, the surrounding star field does not match Swift's note "... in center of a semi-circle of 4 stars." In particular, there is a fairly bright star within an arcmin of the galaxy to the north. If Swift saw this galaxy, he would surely have noted the star. Are there any other candidates in the area? Galaxies that could be force fit to Swift's description include NGC 6505 (= UGC 11026), NGC 6536 (= UGC 11077), and CGCG 322-032. None of these, however, are at positions that would be even digits off of the nominal position. I don't think they are likely to be the correct nebula, either. I'm listing the CGCG identity with a question mark. It's clear to me that it is the wrong object, but there is nothing else that comes as close. ===== NGC 6536 may just possibly also be NGC 6534, which see. ===== NGC 6543 is the famous planetary near the north ecliptic pole. See IC 4677 for a bit more about it. ===== NGC 6548 and NGC 6550 = NGC 6549. There are two galaxies in this field; the brighter, NGC 6548, was found by WH in June of 1786, and given the number III 555 in his catalogue of nebulae and clusters. WH's position reduces to 18 03 55, +18 33.5 (B1950.0), about 2.2 arcmin southeast of the modern position for the brighter object. The position in GC and NGC was either reduced with respect to a rather crude position for the comparison star (101 Her), or a (simple digit?) error of -20 seconds of time has crept into the RA. The fainter galaxy was first seen by Marth in July 1864, and was rediscovered 18 years later by Stephan. Both noted the brighter object. Marth simply says "... near III 555" in his description, while Stephan says "Distinct from [GC] 4377 and [GC] 5892." Dreyer condensed that for the NGC by adding "... near m361" to Stephan's description. Since there are only the two nebulae here, and because Stephan did not measure the brighter objects he claims to have seen, we can only speculate on what his third object must have been. Perhaps it is the line of three stars east of Marth's galaxy. In any event, it is clear that Stephan and Marth found the same galaxy. Stephan's accurately measured position precesses to 18 03 38.4, +18 31 48, while Marth's less accurately estimated position precesses to 18 03 36, +18 32.2, still quite close to the galaxy. There matters would have stood had Lewis Swift not published a cryptic note in his 11th list of nebulae (AN 147, 210, 1898): "NGC 6550 = H III 555. 6550 must be struck out." The wording of Swift's original note in his "Catalogue No. II ..." (which appeared in PASP 9, 186, 1897, and in MNRAS 57, 629, 1897) makes better sense: "NGC 6550 must be struck out, as it is identical with H. III 555." Dreyer made what sense he could of all this, and has a Note in the second IC which reads "6548 = 6550, Swift in Cat. XI." (Dreyer also changed the NGC number to "6550" for H III 555 in his 1912 collection of WH's papers.) Swift was apparently trying to tell us that there are only two galaxies here, too, but his wording in the AN list just made the cataloguing problem worse. Enough people have read the IC Note that the modern identifications are thoroughly confused. An obvious predilection for the objects in RA order has also fed the confusion. In the end, though, it is clear that WH found the brighter, northeastern galaxy, while Marth saw both objects -- and Stephan not only saw the two real galaxies, but (apparently) an asterism as well. So, my position table reflects this by keeping Dreyer's original NGC number, 6548, on H III 555; and by equating Marth's and Stephan's "novae", N6549 and N6550. ===== NGC 6549 = NGC 6550, which see. Also see NGC 6548 for the full story. ===== NGC 6550 = NGC 6549 is not NGC 6548 as we have long supposed. Thanks to Malcolm Thomson and Steve Gottlieb for first directing my attention to this puzzling triplet of numbers, and to Christopher Watson for questioning the inconsistency in my earlier "untangling" of the problem. See NGC 6548 for the full story. ===== NGC 6551 refers to an object found by Leavenworth in July of 1885. He has left us a vivid sketch showing what looks like a globular cluster placed exactly between two moderately bright stars. The position on the sketch cover matches that published in the AJ list (18 02, -29 34 for equinox 1890), but there is nothing in the area that matches the sketch. The only other notes on the sketch besides the position and Leavenworth's initials read, "Drawn July 6 from sketch July 7 '85. Power 500+-." The dates are not mistakes -- the date "drawn" really does precede the date "sketched." One must be wrong. Andris and Wolfgang have taken N6551 to be the asterism of half a dozen stars near Leavenworth's position. But they do not match his sketch at all. The nearest globular cluster is NGC 6522, and while that might be seen as "vF, vS, R, rr" at -29 degrees from Leander McCormick, the stars flanking it do not correspond with those shown on the sketch. So, another mysterious L-M object. ===== NGC 6554. During the plate scanning for ESGC, I noted this as "20-30 stars in a 20 arcmin area." I don't believe that these stars are a real cluster, but they do stand out from the field enough that they could be picked up during a visual sweep. JH's comment "Has several double stars in it" also makes it clear that he was seeing the same concentration of stars. I put the center somewhat east-northeast of JH's position, but the identity is not in question. ===== NGC 6556. The problems with this object began with Sir John himself and his summary description published in the GC, then copied faithfully into the NGC. That description makes the object "F, vL, cE, lbM, rr." On the other hand, JH's original notes read "Cl VI. An oval patch comprised within limits of the field, barely resolvable into infinitely minute points, but which, without attention, appears as a great nebula 15' l; 12' br; hardly bM." Howe saw it the same way 65 years later: "I see nothin in the entire region except thousands of the minutest stars." Dreyer summarized this in the IC2 Notes simply as "No nebulosity (Ho)." The object is actually part of the complex region of star clouds and obscuring dust clouds near the Galactic Center. JH's position points to an otherwise unremarkable part of the Milky Way, comprised of, as both he and Howe saw, "... thousands of the minutest stars." I've adopted JH's position, and his description above is apt. ===== NGC 6564 is probably a triple star 1.5 seconds preceding and 1.5 arcmin south of Marth's position. There is no galaxy near that he might have seen, and the triple would probably match his view of it with Lassell's 48-inch. Marth found two other galaxies the same night (N6375 and N6379); the mean offset of their positions from Marth's is in the same direction and about the same size (1 second of time and 1 arcmin) as those for the triple. All in all, this amounts only to circumstantial evidence, but it is the best we can do at the moment. ===== NGC 6573 may be the Milky Way star cloud about 30 seconds following JH's position, but could also be the large scattered clump of clumps of stars right around his position. His description, from one night's observation at Slough, reads, "A cluster composed of 2 or 3 clusters of very small stars, and loose large ones. Perhaps an outlier of VIII. 31 [N6583]." He marks the RA with a plus/minus sign, so either grouping seems possible. This is a candidate for observation at the eyepiece. ===== NGC 6574 is probably also NGC 6610, which see. ===== NGC 6581 = IC 1280. The position that Stephan quotes for his comparison star is off by about 15 seconds of time, so the NGC position for the galaxy is also off by the same amount. Digging into the data a bit more suggests that there is an additional 2 second error in Stephan's RA, but his description "... between two very small stars" is exactly right. Bigourdan, of course, could not find N6581 at its catalogued position, but rediscovered it at its true position. Thinking it was a "nova," he included it in his third list of new nebulae. He saw it only on one night, and commented then that it is "Impossible to measure, because I cannot easily distinguish it from 2-3 vF neighboring stars." His position is therefore based on a single estimate from the same star that Stephan used, and points to the same galaxy. ===== NGC 6583. See NGC 6573. ===== NGC 6586. See NGC 6591. ===== NGC 6588 is probably one of the asterisms that I've listed in the position table. My guess is the line of three or four stars that I've marked with a colon. The southern most of these is the brightest, and is a merged double which might have looked nebulous on a night of less than perfect seeing. It is at JH's declination and is just 30 seconds preceding his RA. Otherwise, JH's description, "eF, S; among stars. A *6 m sp 10 arcmin distant," fits nicely. The star is SAO 254209. However, there are two other asterisms that might be JH's object. I've listed them with question marks. I also checked for a large blunder in the position, but found none. In particular, the other objects in this sweep (No. 708 on 8 June 1836), are in the same declination range, and at much the same RA as well. ===== NGC 6589 may also be IC 4690 (which see for more discussion). Swift's position for N6589 is about 36 seconds of time off, a mistake corrected by Barnard, and included in the IC2 Notes. Ironically, Barnard is also responsible for a mistake of his own which makes the identity with I4690 probable. Also see discussion under NGC 6590 and IC 1283 for more on this field. ===== NGC 6590 = NGC 6595 = IC 4700. JH found the brightest nebula in this group while observing at Slough; his position is good. Swift came across it and another nearby nebula nearly 60 years later in 1885, but misplaced both by about 45 seconds of time in RA from the correct positions. In a note in AN 3101, Barnard corrected the positions for both of Swift's objects, noting the identity of N6590 with N6595. He also announced the discovery of another larger, though fainter nebula (I1284) northeast of the brighter pair. (In still another note in AN 3111, Barnard also announced the discovery of yet another nebula here, I1283. See that for more). Curiously, Barnard mentions the AN 3111 note in AN 4239, but not the AN 3101 note. Had he done so, it might have alerted Dreyer to the identity of one of Barnard's nebulae mentioned there (see N6589 for the passage) with N6595. Had this happened, Dreyer probably would not have been included it in the second IC. ===== NGC 6591 may be the galaxy that I've flagged with a question mark in the table. That matches Marth's description ("eeF, vS, stell") and is not too far off his position (the RA is 12 seconds too large). However, it may not be the object that Marth saw. That object was found the same night as NGC 6586 which has offsets from Marth's position of -2 seconds of time and -14 arcsec in declination. At similar offsets (-3 seconds and -32 arcsec) is a faint galaxy with two foreground stars just to the southwest, the brighter star superposed on the galaxy itself. While this group of objects does not match Marth's description -- in particular, the galaxy is fainter than the one I mentioned in the previous paragraph, and the brighter superposed star is considerably brighter than the galaxy (why didn't Marth mention the star if he saw it?) -- its positional coincidence within Marth's usual observational errors is fairly compelling. Still, I'm keeping open the possibility that the brighter, isolated galaxy is Marth's object. It may even be possible that the asterism of five stars that I've also included in the table is the object that Marth saw. But that is the least likely option because its brightest star is nearly of the 10th magnitude, far too bright to match Marth's description. ===== NGC 6592. Swift's position is not very good, but he notes "nearly between 2 stars." Given that he was working with a large field, that comment pins down the galaxy. See NGC 6607 for more on the field. ===== NGC 6594. As with NGC 6592, Swift's note about nearby stars "between a faint and a more distant bright star" nails the identification. The bright star is SAO 17798. See NGC 6607 for more about other objects in this field. ===== NGC 6595 = NGC 6590 (which see) = IC 4700. ===== NGC 6597. Swift's comment "Difficult by proximity to a bright star" is correct -- the star is SAO 17798, the same one he mentions in his description for NGC 6594 (which see). Also see NGC 6607 for more details about this field. ===== NGC 6599 is probably also NGC 6600, which see. ===== NGC 6600 is probably = NGC 6599, though RNGC suggests NGC 6602. Marth could have seen either, but since N6599 is nearly a magnitude brighter and has a higher surface brightness as well, it is the more likely candidate. This makes Marth's declination 7 arcmin off, and I am going to suggest that the printed north polar distance should actually be "65 07" rather than "65 01". Marth's RA is exact. If Marth's RA is off instead, and this is NGC 6602, it would be 52 seconds too small; the Dec would then be just an arcmin off. Since Marth lists this as one of his "verified" nebulae, I'm more inclined to believe that the NPD he gives is in error. ===== NGC 6601. Swift's note "Near end of a curve of stars" is accurate and unambiguously identifies this galaxy. See NGC 6607 for the reason this particular identification is so important. ===== NGC 6602 is probably not NGC 6600, which see. ===== NGC 6603, a relatively small and faint cluster, is not M24. The Messier object is actually IC 4715, which see for more. ===== NGC 6605. There appears to be a +2 minute error in JH's RA, as a cluster matching his description "Loose straggling cluster; stars 10...12m" is at his declination, but 2 minutes of time preceding. There are about 30 stars of the correct magnitude scattered over a 15 arcmin by 15 arcmin area, while there are none brighter than 14th or 15th magnitude at the nominal place. ===== NGC 6607, 6608, and 6609. This is a trio of objects all credited to Lewis Swift. They were all discovered on the night of 4 Aug 1883, and are listed in Swift's first paper as being the 5th, 6th, and 7th of 8, respectively (numbers 91-93 in his sequential numbering of the entire list). The other five objects are N6592, N6594, N6597, N6601, and N6617. Though Swift's positions aren't too good for these five, either, the galaxies are nevertheless unambiously identified by Swift's comments about nearby stars (or the lack of them). N6601, by the way, is the only other object of the eight that Swift found that night in 1883; the remaining four are dated 14 June 1885. Swift's declination for NGC 6608 is the problem. He places it at exactly the same declination as NGC 6609 just 15 arcsec north of NGC 6607. So, while there are three galaxies in the area, only two are at Swift's declination while the other is 2 arcmin south. Furthermore, the southern object is a faint edgewise Scd or Sd with a low mean surface brightness. Not only does it not match Swift's descriptions of shape ("R", "R", and "lE" for the three objects) it is so faint (around V = 15.5 at a guess, compared to V = 14.5 and 15.0 for the other two) that I would be surprised if Swift could have seen it at all. The object that Swift described as the faintest of the batch of eight (NGC 6617, which see) is considerably brighter than than this spindle. In addition to that, Swift says there is a "vF star near" his object -- there are none near the spindle that he could have seen that are not nearer NGC 6609 (and that leads to yet another hypothesis for NGC 6608; see the last paragraph of this note). Still, there are three galaxies here, and three NGC numbers. If we assume that Swift's RA's for the four objects found this night are correct among themselves in a relative sense, then we can apply the correction necessary to make his RA for NGC 6601 agree with the GSC position (+13 seconds of time) to the others. This leads to RA's for the others that are different from the true RA's by -4, -4, and -3 seconds of time, respectively. Thus, Swift's RA's for the three galaxies are in very good relative agreement. So, in spite of my doubts that he saw the faint edgewise galaxy (MCG +10-26-024), I'm going to assume a 2 arcmin error in the declination for this object and call it NGC 6608. The other two, NGC 6607 and NGC 6609, fit his descriptions very well -- including the "F star near" NGC 6609 -- so there is no problem with them. As a final possibility, I'm going to suggest that perhaps, just perhaps, Swift's observations of the latter two objects (numbers 92 and 93 in his list) refer to the same galaxy. Had the observations been made on different nights, I would have said "A-ha!" at the beginning of this story and equated them with hardly a doubt left. As is, we'd have to assume some sort of blunder in Swift's observations within a single night in a small area of sky. With that third galaxy just south, though -- well, Occam's razor slashes deeply enough that that is the more likely choice. ===== NGC 6608. See NGC 6607. ===== NGC 6609. See NGC 6607. ===== NGC 6610 is probably NGC 6574. There is nothing at the catalogued position of N6610, and there are no reasonable changes to the calculated offsets (+1m 0.11s, -4' 31.3") from Stephan's nominal comparison star ("208 W. (A.C.) H.XVIII") that point to anything aside from very faint stars. However, about 1.3 deg north, and 1.75 minutes following Stephan's nominal position is a star-galaxy pair that matches the offsets to within Stephan's normal observing errors (the actual offsets are +59.77s and -4' 32.5"). The galaxy, UGC 11198, also matches his description pretty well. So, I had taken this to be a very good candidate for NGC 6610, with some sort of confusion in Stephan's observing records. But the question about the identity had originally come from Leos Ondra who posted it to one of the astronomy forums on the Internet in 1999. There, it attracted the attention of Steve Gottlieb who did the same kind of digging back into the literature that I did, but did not come up with a candidate. Brian Skiff suggested that NGC 6574, about 5 minutes west, might be N6610, but noted that there is no comparison star at the correct offsets. Leos also noted a paper by Seares in PASP 28, 122, 1916 titled "Identification of NGC 6610." Brian checked a copy of that paper and found that the object Seares suggests is actually a plate defect on an early plate of the area. The object is not on either POSS1 or POSS2. Finally, Leos sent me a copy of a note that he had had "off-list" from Jim Caplan, a research astronomer at the Observatoire de Marseille where Stephan observed and was director between 1866 and 1907. Jim called attention to a monograph containing a complete re-reduction of Stephan's observations by a Monsieur Esmiol, presumeably one of the younger astronomers at Marseille. This was published in 1916 after Stephan's retirement, and carries not only the reduced positions, but mean values of Stephan's micrometric measurements, too. (I had seen a copy of this at the library at ROE in the late 1970s, but failed to make a photocopy for myself -- bad move!). The observation previously leading to the NGC number 6610 is listed in the monograph under the designation "anonyme" with completely different offsets (-1m 42.63s, -0' 14.0" from six settings in RA and 3 in Dec) from a completely different star (BD +14 3453). A footnote reads "Class\'e \`a tort 6610" ("Called 6610 by mistake"); this is apparently the only published "explanation" of this particular case. Reducing these observations with the GSC position for the comparison star puts the position directly on NGC 6574. So, it looks like Brian is correct, though for a different reason than he probably envisioned. I am still curious, however, about the extraordinary coincidence of the earlier calculated offsets with the UGC 11198/BD +16 3447 pair. Where did Stephan's originally published positions come from? Jim tells me that many of Stephan's original observing records and reductions are still in existence; we may be able to eventually find an answer to this question. ===== NGC 6616. Though Swift's RA is off by 24 seconds of time, Herbert Howe found the correct galaxy and remeasured its position. His correction is included in IC2. ===== NGC 6617. Swift not only describes this as the largest, faintest, and most difficult of the eight objects he found in the area, he also says that it is "in [a] vacancy." While there are faint stars nearby, the ones he would have noticed are far enough away that the object does indeed appear to be pretty isolated. See NGC 6607 for more on this field. ===== NGC 6625. JH's RA is marked uncertain in his 1833 PT catalogue where he describes it only as "A loose straggling cluster of stars 11 .. 12 m." There is no immediately obvious cluster at his position, but about two arcmin northwest there is a clump of stars, four arcmin by two arcmin in size, that might be his object. This is on the southeastern edge of a much larger clump (roughly 10 arcmin by 8 arcmin) that could also be JH's object. Neither is particularly striking, but the former has been identified as a real cluster. Since it stands out a bit more, and might make an impression during a sweep, I've adopted it as N6625. ===== NGC 6647, H VIII 14, was also seen by JH whose position is adopted in NGC. There is nothing obvious at that position. WH's original position is about 8 arcmin west-northwest of his son's. Just 4 arcmin northeast of that is a group, about four arcmin across, of a couple of dozen stars. The brightest is around 12th magnitude. I think that these are the stars that WH took to be a cluster. What I find curious about this object is the description. NGC follows GC exactly in calling the object a "Cl, L, Ri, lC, sts vS." How did JH get that out of his father's and his own observations? WH's description reads, "A cl of sc pL sts," while JH's reads "A very loose parcel of v small stars, hardly noticeable as a cluster." "Large" perhaps, but "Rich"? Perhaps JH penned the description in haste. Whatever the case, the clump of stars that I believe to be WH's object does not match the NGC description, though it does fit what WH himself wrote. ===== NGC 6655 was found in June 1855 by Winnecke with the 9-inch Fraunhofer refractor in Berlin and has not been seen since. Auwers lists it as the 42nd new object in the appendix to his 1862 reduction of WH's nebulae where he gives Winnecke's description. This boils down to pF, S, E, 10 x 3 arcsec. The position is 18 25 43, -06 06 for 1830. There is nothing there. (Auwers also notes that he could not find the object.) However, 20 seconds of time west, and 3.3 arcmin north is a 14th magnitude double star with a separation of about 11 arcsec. This may be the object that Winnecke saw. ===== NGC 6659 appears to be a clump of about 20 stars between 10 and 15 mag covering an area about 9 x 5 arcmin. JH describes it tersely, "A v poor cluster 8th class." His position is about 2 arcmin southwest of the center of the clump of stars. ===== NGC 6660 = NGC 6661. Swift's declination for N6660 is 10 arcmin too small, but his description fits, including the note "between 2 stars." The identity was first noticed by Pechule, and included in the Notes to IC1 by Dreyer. ===== NGC 6661 = NGC 6660, which see. ===== NGC 6666 could be any of a number of galaxies within a degree or so of Swift's position. It could also be UGC 11278 or UGC 11281 five degrees north. Whatever Edward Swift saw, it is certainly not at the position his father sent to Dreyer or later published. Bigourdan's single observation a decade after Edward Swift's is for an asterism of five stars, the brightest three in a line extending from northwest to southeast. I don't think that this is likely to be Swift's object, but it is a possibility. The asterism is 20 seconds east and 2.5 arcmin south of Swift's position, but I don't think that it would match his description. This could be easily checked, of course, with a 15-inch class telescope. ===== NGC 6667 = NGC 6668 = NGC 6678, both of which see. ===== NGC 6668 = NGC 6667 (as well as NGC 6678, which see). Found by Swift (included in his 4th list), this is most likely to be NGC 6667 as there is nothing at Swift's place resembling a "pB, pS, vE" nebula. Howe could not find it, either, and suggested that N6668 might be N6677. However, N6667 is brighter and its inner regions perhaps fit Swift's description better. Also, the difference in position is exactly 50 arcmin, suggesting a transcription error or a typo somewhere in Swift's reduction/publication chain. ===== NGC 6669 is most likely the asterism of six faint stars just north of Marth's position. This is of an appropriate size and combined magnitude that he would probably describe it as he did, "eF, pL." Wolfgang followed the LEDA group's lead in assigning this number to a 16th magnitude galaxy with a 12th magnitude star superposed well off Marth's place. Had Marth seen this object, he would certainly have mentioned the star. I think that the galaxy is faint enough, however, that the star would mask it, even at the eyepiece of Lassell's 48-inch reflector. ===== NGC 6672 is a triple star at Stephan's position. The mean position (measured on DSS) for the three stars is less than three arcseconds away from his micrometrically-measured position. ===== NGC 6677 and 6679 = IC 4763. Malcolm and I have fussed over this field for several years now, and have been unable to come to a consensus. So here is my take on the area. The two brightest galaxies here -- Malcolm's objects "A" and "B" -- were seen by Swift, Bigourdan, and Howe. (Kobold also has an observation of NGC 6677 in the Strassburg Annals, Vol. 3, 1909, but his comparison star has a high proper motion which makes the derivation of an accurate position more difficult.) I agree with Malcolm that A must be NGC 6677, but am pretty well convinced that B is NGC 6679 = IC 4763. Here's why: 1) As I always do for identification problems, I determined as accurate a position as I can for every object bearing on an identity question. In this case, this meant reducing Bigourdan's micrometric observations, and digging positions out of the Guide Star Catalogue. Here are the results for Malcolm's three objects (positions are for the equinox 1950.0): Galaxy NGC/IC RA Dec Source Notes A N6677 18 33 39.20 +67 04 09.8 GSC 18 33 38.83 +67 04 11.3 Big 5 Sept 1891 only 18 33 40 +67 04.1 Howe B N6679=I4763 18 33 33.29 +67 05 47.1 GSC 18 33 33.58 +67 05 44.8 Big 18 33 35 +67 05.7 Howe C --- 18 33 34.36 +67 06 21.8 GSC Notice that I have used Bigourdan's observations only from the night of 5 Sept 1891 for NGC 6677. His observations on 25 June 1897 refer to the star southeast of the galaxy. I also suspect that his comparison star (BD +66 1115 = GSC 4227-00549) has a relatively large proper motion as there is a systematic offset of +0.24 sec and -7.8 arcsec between his positions and the GSC positions for all the objects for which he used this star as a comparison. I've corrected his positions in the table above for these offsets. The excellent agreement between Bigourdan's, Howe's, and the GSC positions convinces me that the two micrometric observations from each of the early observers do indeed refer to Malcolm's objects A and B. Furthermore, their descriptions also make sense -- and agree with Swift's -- if we note one additional fact: object B is in fact a close double galaxy. Object C is more than 30 arcsec north of B, which puts it much too far away to be part of the object that Howe measured as NGC 6679: "This is a nebulous D * of mags 12.5, distance 5 arcsec, [position] angle 60 deg." Bigourdan's description of it as a double star, one that he could not resolve at 344X, also points to the close pair as the actual NGC 6679 -- and adds support to the evidence from his measured position that the pair is equal to Big 333 = IC 4763 (it is, of course, clear that Bigourdan himself realized this). All of this evidence, combined with Swift's own descriptions (in his papers 1, 3, and 9) seem to me to pin down the identifications without much doubt. I've not taken Swift's own positions into account as we know that they are not very good. In this case, Howe has noted that Swift's declination for N6679 in the NGC is out by 8.5 arcmin. Swift corrected this by 10 arcmin when he finally published the observation in AN 3004, but by then, the damage had been done. ===== NGC 6678 = NGC 6667 (which is also = NGC 6668, which see). IC 4762 = Big 332 is a double star at exactly the location given by Bigourdan. Until I found that it was a double star, I thought that it might be NGC 6678, found by Swift (it is No. 99 in his first list), and with an identical declination. However, I'm more inclined to believe that N6678 is the same as NGC 6667 (see NGC 6668 for more discussion); this galaxy is brighter than the double star, and its inner regions might be taken as a "pF, pS, R" nebula. Howe could not find this, either, but suggested no alternative identification for it. ===== NGC 6679 = IC 4763. See NGC 6677. ===== NGC 6682. Bigourdan was the first to notice that JH's RA is 2 minutes too large. Alister Ling picked up the error independently a century later. With an additional small correction in Dec (about 3 arcmin to the south), JH's "A large, pretty rich cluster of straggling stars ..." is found to be located in a Milky Way star cloud. The remainder of his description "... having a vacuity in the middle and broken into 2 or 3 clusters. Fills field. 70 or 80 stars of all magnitudes from 10 to 18 counted. Extended in parallel. The most compressed part following," is appropriate. ===== NGC 6688. See NGC 6693. ===== NGC 6689 = NGC 6690, which see. ===== NGC 6690 = NGC 6689. Both Swift and d'A found this galaxy twice. D'A, however, realized that his two observations refered to the same object, while Swift's second position was far enough off to mislead him into including the galaxy twice in his fifth list. Dreyer somehow recognized Swift's mistake, so only included one of the entries in NGC -- but he (Dreyer) also missed the identity with d'A's object, even though the two positions are less than an arcmin apart on the sky. Whatever happened, there is certainly only one galaxy, and it clearly bears two NGC numbers. The several descriptions are good, and all the nearby field stars are just where d'A and Swift put them in their notes. ===== NGC 6693 is lost. There are only faint stars in the area of Marth's position. The RNGC claims the object to be a star, but I see no particular single, double, or multiple star around that might have caught Marth's eye. Of the nine other objects that Marth found the same night ("1864.59"), two bracket N6693 in RA, and are at similar Dec's: N6688 and N6713. Neither has a large offset in Marth's position from the modern positions, so I have to presume that N6693 is also unaffected by any systematic error. Barring a large digit error (e.g. 1 degree, 10 minutes), Marth's object is probably gone forever. ===== NGC 6695. See IC 1294. ===== NGC 6698 may be the somewhat denser region of stars about 25 arcmin north of WH's position. If so, his position for it shares the same large offset that affects his positions for N6514 and N6533 (which see), found the same night. If this is WH's object -- his description "A suspected cluster of vF stars of considerable extent" certainly fits -- it is probably not a true cluster, but just a concentration in the rich Milky Way field. Coincidentally, the planetary nebula PK 009-10.1 is close to the center of the concentration. The proper motions would have to be checked to see if there is a connection, or indeed if there really is a cluster here. ===== NGC 6709 may also be NGC 6724, which see. ===== NGC 6713. See NGC 6693. ===== NGC 6714 is probably lost. There is nothing at Swift's position, though his note "... sev B sts nr n" is appropriate for his field. Did he perhaps see a faint comet? Since he rarely comments about verifying his nebulae, this seems a possibility worth mentioning, at least in this case. Barring a digit error, though, this object may be gone forever. ===== NGC 6717. IC 4802 (which see) is a clump of stars in this globular. ===== NGC 6724 is described by JH simply as "A cluster discovered with the 7-feet (sic) equatorial, Sept 5, 1828." He puts a plus/minus sign on the RA which he lists to only a full minute of time, though the Dec is given to his usual precision of an arcsec. About five arcmin northwest of his place is a small (5 arcmin by 3 arcmin) clump of stars, a dozen of which are bright enough to be in GSC. Given the paucity of information, though, the object could also be NGC 6709, a much richer cluster 10 minutes west at the same declination. Until further data can be dug out of JH's original observing notes (assuming there is more data), I am going to adopt the poorer clump of stars for this number -- though with a colon to flag the uncertainty inherent in the observation. ===== NGC 6726, NGC 6727, and NGC 6729 are all stars immersed in nebulae. Delisle Stewart found them associated with a much larger and fainter nebulosity, IC 4812 (which see), on a 5-hour Harvard plate. The positions I give apply to the stars. ===== NGC 6728 could be Isserstedt 662, a stellar ring (though it does not look very ring-like to me). This is one minute, 13 seconds preceding and 1.6 arcminutes north of WH's position at which there is nothing. WH describes the cluster as being composed of "... coarsely scattered stars, not rich." This certainly fits Iss. 662 which is the only object in the area that WH might have picked up. Those interested in Isserstedt's idea that the stellar rings have a constant size -- so can therefore be used as distance indicators -- can read more about them in A&A 9, 70, 1970 which gives other earlier references. ===== NGC 6731 is probably the double star whose position I give in the main table. It was found by J. G. Lohse, and is similar to other "nebulae" found by him (e.g. NGC 6344 and NGC 6767, both of which see). He describes it simply as "Very faint," though, so the identification is not as secure as it might be. ===== NGC 6735 is a clustering of stars around SAO 142915 (JH's position refers to this star), though the center of the cluster seems to be a bit southwest of the star. It matches JH's description quite well, and would probably stand out nicely in a wide-field eyepiece. ===== NGC 6737 is another of JH's clusters nearly lost against the bright Milky Way background on the modern sky surveys. His position refers to SAO 162109, though the cluster itself is centered about a minute straight east of the star. ===== NGC 6738, found by JH, is an optical alignment of a couple of dozen bright stars seen through varying amounts of dust. It is not a real cluster. Boeche et al (A&A, XXX, XXX, 2003) have done a thorough photometric, astrometric, and spectroscopic study of the field and have not been able to find a real cluster here. There are undoubtedly many other such clusters in the catalogues. ===== NGC 6743. JH describes this as "A pL, poor cl of stars forming irreg groups or patches, 11 ... 12 m; diam = 8'." About an arcminute preceding his position are three pretty bright stars and roughly 30 fainter ones scattered over an area about 8 - 10 arcmin across. This is doubtless the group that JH saw. As with many of these apparent clusterings, it may not be a real cluster. It will take astrometric and photometric studies to determine whether the stars are neighbors in space. ===== NGC 6748 may be lost forever. This is an unusual fate for one of Stephan's discoveries, as he measured all of his objects carefully with respect to stars with accurately-determined positions. He claims five measurements of this nebula with respect to SAO 86851, and describes it simply as "Pretty bright, very small, and brighter in the center." The implied offsets (for equinox 1870.0) from the star are -4m 18.53s and -9 arcmin 25.5 arcsec. Not only is there nothing at these offsets from his nominal star, I find nothing at similar offsets from other stars in the same area of sky. Unfortunately, the object is not listed in Esmiol's 1916 collection and re-reduction of Stephan's nebulae, so unless Stephan's original observing and reduction logs can be found, we will probably never recover this object. ===== NGC 6752 may also be NGC 6777, which see. ===== NGC 6762 = NGC 6763. The identity was first suggested by Howe. He apparently had a letter from Swift confirming that the two numbers apply to the same galaxy as he starts his note in MN 61, 42, 1900 by saying "These are identical; Swift admits it." Since Swift found them on different nights (30 August 1883 and 30 April 1884), and gave them virtually identical positions, there is little doubt that they indeed refer to the same galaxy. ===== NGC 6763 = NGC 6762, which see. ===== NGC 6766. Things are not looking good for this stellar planetary discovered by Pickering. The NGC position (precessed to 1950) is 19 08.6, +46 11, while Pickering himself gives 20 08.8, +46 19 in his collection of nebulae found at Harvard (Harvard Annals 60; I have not seen his note in AN 105, 355 where he actually announced the discovery.) Assuming that the "20" hours he gives is actually a typo for "19", the HA 60 position would be 19 08.7, +46 15, still far enough off the NGC position to make locating a "stellar" nebula in the rich Milky Way field a headache. There are no planetaries obvious in DSS fields around Pickering's positions, so examination of objective prism plates would seem to be necessary to recover his object if it exists. Pickering's method of finding the planetaries is interesting: he simply swept the sky looking through a low-dispersion spectrograph. The stars' spectra must have appeared mostly continuous through his instrument, while the planetaries would still be stellar because most of their visible light is concentrated in the emission lines of oxygen at 4958 and 5007 angstroms. ===== NGC 6767 is another double star found by Lohse. He describes it as "Very faint, small, round, stellar; small star near north." The double star is very close to his position, and the "small star" is 33 arcsec north. ===== NGC 6773. This is a "Coarse; not very rich, eighth class" cluster found by JH. His position refers to a pretty bright star west of the cluster's center where I place it in a 10 x 10 arcmin DSS field. ===== NGC 6774 is a large cluster, over 20 arcmin across with perhaps 75 to 100 stars as possible members. JH's position is close northeast of SAO 162395, the brightest star in (or superposed on) the cluster, but the center on the POSS1 prints is six arcmin west-northwest. ===== NGC 6775 may not be a real cluster, but it is clear on the sky as a tight clump of about a dozen stars, with another looser clump about five arcmin to the west. JH's position is on the tight clump. ===== NGC 6777 may be NGC 6752 (first suggested by Owen Gingerich in a Sky and Telescope article which appeared in the February 1960 issue on page 207). If so, there is a large error in Lacaille's position. Much closer to his position is a fairly close pair of 9th magnitude stars, SAO 257685 and 257686. These were mentioned by Delisle Stewart in his Harvard Annals 60 list, and were subsequently picked up by Andris Lauberts for ESO-B. Would these two stars look like "the nucleus of a small comet" in the eyepiece of Lacaille's half-inch aperture quadrant? Perhaps. But I like Gingerich's idea a bit better. ===== NGC 6778 = NGC 6785, which see. ===== NGC 6781. The position is for a very faint, very blue star -- the southeastern of two -- near the geometric center of the planetary. The star is not seen at all in any of the 2MASS images, but is clear on the DSS2B image. ===== NGC 6784. There are two galaxies of virtually equal magnitude and diameter here, separated by 4.6 seconds of time, and 30 arcsec -- the orientation is southwest-northeast. Which one did JH see? He has three observations of his nebula and records it as "eeF" all three times. He made only two firm measurements of its position, however (about the third, he says, "No RA observed, and the PD not to be put in competition with those of regular observations."). These are separated by 8.2 seconds and 68 seconds. Is it possible that he measured a different galaxy each time? Unfortunately, this is an unanswerable question since the orientation of his two observations is northwest-southeast. So, while it's tempting to speculate about this (and speculate I have), I don't think we can say anything definite here. Thus, I've attached the number NGC 6784 to both galaxies. ===== NGC 6785 = NGC 6778. JH's description reads "An eS stellar neb = a * 15m; it is 2/3 of a diam of field (= 10') from a double star which it follows, to S. Pos from the star = 240 deg +-. The RA is excessively loose." This fits N6778 if the phrase "which it follows" is changed to "which follows it." Then, the position angle agrees as well. This means, however, that not only is the RA "excessively loose," but that there is 30 arcmin error in JH's Dec as well. Bigourdan's correction to the RA quoted in the IC2 Notes applies to a random clump of stars at JH's original (incorrect) Declination. These are clearly not NGC 6785. ===== NGC 6795. The NGC description, "Cl, Ri, bet 2 sts 9", transcribed correctly from GC, doesn't really do justice to JH's original description: "The first of 3 sts 9 m, nearly in the parallel, joined by a rich clustering portion of the Milky Way." I sometimes wonder if JH wrote the GC descriptions or had a clerk do the chore for him. I've made the position a little closer to the middle of the three stars. That seems to represent the "rich clustering portion" better than JH's own place nearer the first star. ===== NGC 6797 is a triple star. Peters only gives its position and the note, "* 9m att f." The 9th magnitude star is there, but there is no nebulosity associated with the triple. Andris Lauberts was the first to identify this object correctly, in his ESO/Uppsala Catalogue. ===== NGC 6798 = IC 1300, which see. ===== NGC 6800. WH's RA is 1 minute of time too small, but JH's is correct. Since JH adopted his own position for GC, NGC also has the correct position. See NGC 6882 = NGC 6885 for more on WH's observations on the night of 10 Sept 1784. ===== NGC 6811. JH has two observations of this, separated by nearly a minute of time in RA and 6 arcmin in Dec. The RA of the first observation is correct, while the declination of the second is correct. Unfortunately, the position JH adopted for the GC carries the RA of the second, and a Dec 10 arcmin further on north. I think he meant to use only the second observation (he notes that the first observation refers to "A double star in the southern part ..."), so the incorrect Dec must be a transcription or typographical error. Once these errors are corrected, though, N6811 turns out to be quite a nice cluster, ten or twelve arcmin across, with perhaps a hundred stars, many of the 10th and 11th magnitudes. ===== NGC 6814. See NGC 6822 = IC 4895. ===== NGC 6815. On POSS1, this appears to be a cluster about 20' by 10', elongated roughly in position angle 135 deg, centered about 4 arcmin southwest of JH's position. It's not too obvious on the photographs, but could well stand out while sweeping with a large telescope. ===== NGC 6816. RC3 is indeed wrong on this as it followed ESO and RNGC. SGC got the wrong galaxy, too, and as Steve Gottlieb noted earlier, JH's original description of the position of the star (six arcmin north) is correct. Looking at GC, I see that the description is exactly the same as in NGC; it does not follow the Cape of Good Hope description. So, the modification of the description is due to John Herschel himself, not Dreyer. JH must have done this to save space, though how he decided to place the star preceding as well as north is a mystery to me. He also apparently mistook the nucleus of ESO 460-G030 for one of the "vS stars" around the bright star 6' north. Herbert Howe (1898, MN 58, 515) also has a curious observation of this object: "In this is a star of mag 13.5. h noted a '* np.' I saw only a star of mag 14 at an angle of 20 degrees and a distance of 30 arcsec. The sky was dull, so that the nebula was difficult to measure." I see his "star" of mag 13.5; it looks like it is actually a superposed interacting galaxy. Howe also did not publish his position; this means that he found that the original position to be correct to within two arcmin. However, there are no stars 30 arcsec away at PA = 20. There are stars at about this PA, but they are 14 arcsec and 55 arcsec away from the nucleus of the galaxy. I wonder if Howe somehow picked up the wrong object. Well, whatever the case, while there are some unsolved mysteries here, the identification of N6816 is clear. ===== NGC 6822 = IC 4895, which also see. The IC number is easily explained, but I am a bit puzzled at the record concerning NGC 6822 itself. William Sheehan, in his biography of Barnard "The Immortal Fire Within" has the galaxy being "swept up with the 5-inch Byrne refractor in 1884". However, in his short note on its discovery in Sidereal Messenger, Barnard says that he used the 6-inch refractor to determine its position, and that it is in the same low- power field (in the 6-inch) as the well-known planetary nebula, NGC 6814. Barnard is also a bit parsimonious with his description of the galaxy, calling it only "exceedingly faint". There is nothing about its size or shape, so the NGC description "vF, L, E, dif" probably reached Dreyer in a letter. This galaxy is important historically as it is the subject of Edwin Hubble's first published paper on Cepheids in external galaxies. Though he announced the discovery of extragalactic Cepheids in M31 in 1924, he chose NGC 6822, "a remote stellar system", as the first to have his systematic studies reported in the Astrophysical Journal (Volume 62, page 409, 1925). M33 and M31 followed in 1926 and 1929, respectively. Extragalactic astronomy begins here, too. ===== NGC 6828 may be simply a random scattering of stars around SAO 125116 (I've adopted this star's position for the "cluster"). The GSC has a scattered concentration of about 60 stars, 12 x 10 arcmin across, centered about 2.5 arcmin southwest of the SAO star, but this does not show well on the POSS1. Perhaps it would be more outstanding visually. ===== NGC 6832 is similar in appearance to NGC 6828 (which see) -- a few dozen fainter stars are scattered around a bright "central" star, SAO 32016 in this case. However, because the background here is not dominated by the Milky Way, the cluster stands out more on the POSS1 prints and on the DSS. There are even a few galaxies seen through the cluster. ===== NGC 6837 is a cluster of about 15-20 stars 12th magnitude and fainter, only six by three arcmin in size, centered about 3 arcmin west of WH's nominal position (19 50 57, +11 34.7; B1950.0). The position in the GC and NGC comes from JH whose notes read, "Viewed. In place by working list? It is a coarse straggling part of the Milky Way." He puts plus/minus signs on both RA and NPD. It's clear that he should have used his father's position, but I suspect he thought he was. I also suspect that he did not really see the cluster that his father did as his description is not the one he uses for small clusters elsewhere in his observations. WH himself is not much more informative: "A small forming cluster of stars." He used the word "forming" literally as he interpreted the cluster as a young object just settling into clusterhood. The only real clue we have now is "small" and that fits the object pretty well. The NGC position actually lands in a region void of brighter stars. It's no wonder that RNGC lists it as non-existent. ===== NGC 6838 = M 71 may also be NGC 6839, which see -- but probably not. ===== NGC 6839. WH has one observation of this on 18 August 1784; it was the only object (not a star or double star) that he found that night. His description reads only "A very small cluster of compressed stars." There is nothing like that in the area. JH swept over the spot twice and did not positively identify the cluster either time. The position he gives for one observation is probably that reduced by CH, but he puts plus-minus signs on both coordinates. There are several small clumps of stars in the area that might be WH's object, but none stand out on POSS1, GSC, or DSS. It is barely possible that this could be M71 (NGC 6838) which is 45 seconds preceding and 53 arcmin north of WH's nominal position. Since WH recorded no other nebulae or clusters that night, we can't say anything about systematic errors without digging into the detailed records of his sweep. The offset to M71 is not unheard of in WH's observations, but it IS rare for him to have such a large position error. And M71 is hardly a "very small" cluster. ===== NGC 6840 and NGC 6843 are two sparce clusters found by JH. N6840 has two groups of seven stars (separated by about 5 arcmin) in its core, surrounded by about 5-6 others. The stars are of fairly equal brightness, all being around 11th to 12th magnitude, and cover an area of 10 arcmin by 8 arcmin. N6843 is poorer with only around a dozen stars, again 11th to 12th magnitude, scattered over a smaller area. Both are superposed on rich Milky Way backgrounds, so I'm not surprised that they did not stand out enough to be identified for RNGC. In fact, neither may be a real cluster, but proper motions and photometry could tell us that. ===== NGC 6842. Is this possibly NGC 6847 (which see)? Probably not, but it is a possibility. ===== NGC 6843. See NGC 6840. ===== NGC 6846. The RNGC position is 2 degrees too far south. At the correct position is a compact little cluster matching Stephan's description exactly: the three brightest stars are clear enough that he could see them, but the others are considerably fainter, so the entire group must have looked quite nebulous to him. ===== NGC 6847 may be the cluster and HII region 1 degree north and 30 seconds west of WH's single position. There is certainly nothing near his place, and these objects may well be the ones he saw. They are immersed in a fairly large star cloud in the Milky Way, which might have led to WH's comments about the surround area. His full description, given by Dreyer in the Collected Papers of 1912, reads, "A resolvable nebulous patch; there are great numbers of them in this neighborhood like forming nebulae; but this is the strongest of them; they are evidently congeries of small stars." Another possibility is raised by Dreyer's note in the NGC, "Not noticed by d'A, who has 2 observations of GC 5947 = m 403 [= NGC 6842, a planetary]." Is N6842 the object that WH saw? It is just 2 minutes of time preceding and 3 arcmin south of his position. There may be enough stars around the nebula to lead to WH's description, but I suspect not. Two other possibilities are nearby on the POSS prints. First is a clump of stars about 20 arcmin north of WH's position. The second is another clump about 55 arcmin south. Neither of these, however, has "great numbers" of similar clumps nearby. Dreyer notes that Bigourdan found no nebulosity at WH's place, though he searched the area four times. His one micrometric observation (I haven't reduced it) probably points at a double or multiple star. There are many of them around. Finally, using the POSS1 overlays, I thought that this might be identical to "NGC 6846" (which see). However, the overlay copies RNGC's 2 degree error in the declination for N6846 so that it lands on top of the cluster and HII region I noted at the beginning of this story. N6846 is not these objects, though as I said, N6847 might just be. ===== NGC 6861 = IC 4949, which see. ===== NGC 6873. JH's position (and so GC and NGC) is 1 minute of time too large. The correct position for Struve 2631 (the double star noted in the description) puts it into the midst of a relatively rich Milky Way field. But JH is right in calling it "... a coarse straggling group of stars 10...13m, hardly entitled to be called a cluster." The grouping is approximately 13 arcmin x 10 arcmin with a center of gravity just south of the double very close JH's position corrected by 1 minute in RA. ===== NGC 6874. WH found this on 15 Sept 1792, describing it as "A coarsly scattered cluster of large stars, of a right-angled triangular shape." This is exactly the configuration seen about 15 seconds preceding the NGC position, and is the cluster that I've taken as the NGC object. The tabulated position refers to the approximate center of the triangle. JH's position, copied correctly into GC and NGC, refers to the 10th magnitude star at the apex of the triangle, east of the center. ===== NGC 6882 is probably a duplicate observation of NGC 6885. Both clusters were found by WH on subsequent nights (9 and 10 Sept 1784; N6882 is from 10 Sept), were refered to the same star, and have almost identical descriptions: "A cluster of coarsely scattered stars." For NGC 6885, he adds, "... not rich". There is nothing striking near the position of N6882, but that for N6885 is in the middle of a large scattered cluster also observed by JH. Over the years, there has been considerable speculation about what WH saw. Some observers have made the clusters identical, while others (notably Reinmuth) have pointed at the wide group of three bright (m = 6) stars about 20 arcmin north of N6885. Brent Archinal has suggested that the clump of nine stars at 20 09 51, +26 35.1, including HD xxxxxx (the southernmost of Reinmuth's three stars), is N6882. This is unlikely as the clump is only two arcmin across. Had WH seen this, he would most likely have put it into his 7th class; it certainly is not "coarsely scattered." Neither of these matches WH's description, so I'm more inclined to the identity of the two NGC objects. This would imply an error of 15 arcmin in WH's declination; the RA's are 12 seconds different, but both are still well within the central part of the cluster (which is over 20 arcmin across). Adding to my conviction that N6882 = N6885 is the fact that, of the seven objects found by WH on 10 Sept 1784, four have significant offsets in WH's positions (the three besides N6882 are: N6800, -1 minute off in RA; N7720, +40 seconds off in RA; and N7741, +4 arcmin off in Dec). WH was clearly not up to snuff that night, and the +15 arcmin error in the declination of N6882 fits right in with the other problems. Brent has more about 20th century cataloguers' notions on the identity of these two NGC numbers in his marvelous book with Steve Hynes, "Star Clusters." I've tried to stay with to WH's observations, though, spare as they are: they are the source of the two NGC numbers, so it is primarily to them that I look for a solution. ===== NGC 6885 is probably also NGC 6882, which see. ===== NGC 6888 is a large oval-shaped HII region (Sharpless 105), brightest along its northeastern side. WH's place is close to the knots and streamers on that side of the nebula, and it is clear from his description that that is the part he saw. Bigourdan puts the position closer to the center of the oval. He descriptions of the field on two nights (he claims to have seen the nebula on only one of them) makes it clear that he did not see WH's object, just two stars near the revised place given in the IC2 notes. It looks like purest coincidence that this is near the center of the HII region. ===== NGC 6892 is a group of four faint stars a bit southeast of d'A's position (from a single observation). His description fits, too -- d'A suspected the object to be resolvable, but was not able to do so with his 231X eyepiece. The summary description in the NGC is an accurate assessment of how the object must appear in a moderate sized telescope at fairly high power. Also see IC 1312 for a bit more on the field around this object. ===== NGC 6895 is described by WH as "A cluster of scattered stars, above 15 arcmin diameter, pretty rich, joining to the Milky Way, or a projecting part of it." Centered close to his position (I put the center about 2 arcmin northeast) is a large cloud of stars, about 20 arcmin by 18 arcmin, most likely a random clump in the Milky Way. Four SAO stars, and dozens of fainter stars are included. This might well be a nice object telescopically, but on the POSS1 prints, it is not impressive. RNGC's "NO CL" is understandable here. ===== NGC 6896. There is only a double star at d'A's position. He has three accordant observations, and I do not see any mistake in the transcription into GC and NGC. However, d'A does talk about an RA error in his first observation. Apparently, his second and third observations a few night later revealed that error, but he gives no numbers that might suggest another position on the sky for his "cluster." With nothing else to go on, I'm left with only the double as a possibility for his object. ===== NGC 6901 = IC 5000. Seen only once by Marth, his position, correctly copied into the NGC, is off. This misled Bigourdan to measure a nearby star which he took to be N6901, and to rediscover Marth's galaxy. Thus, it got a second number, IC 5000 (which see). There is only one galaxy in the area, however, and Marth's and Bigourdan's descriptions are near enough that they undoubtedly refer to the same object. My supposition in RC2 that the galaxy is also = IC 1316 is, however, incorrect. IC 1316 (which see) was another of Bigourdan's discoveries, which he "observed" twice in different places on the same nights on which he also saw N6901. It is, in fact, non-existent. ===== NGC 6902 may also be IC 4948. See IC 4946 for the story. ===== NGC 6904 was described by JH as "A small straggling cluster of stars 10...11m. One of the 9m, whose place is taken." In spite of the inconsistency in the magnitude of the brightest star, JH's description and position is exactly correct. Wolfgang and I put the center of the cluster just southeast of the 9th magnitude star. Curiously, neither Reinmuth nor RNGC found this object. It is perfectly clear on the POSS1 and the DSS. It may not be a real cluster, but JH's object certainly exists on the sky. ===== NGC 6906 is not IC 5006, which see for the details. ===== NGC 6907. See NGC 6908 which is a superposed companion galaxy. ===== NGC 6908 is a companion of NGC 6907 superposed on its northeastern arm. Barry Madore first pointed this out to me after he examined an image from 2MASS -- N6908 is clearly a separate object interacting with N6907. It is overwhelmed on blue plates by N6907's arm, but is clearly seen not only in the 2MASS images, but on red plates as well. I suspect it would be just as clearly seen at the eyepiece of a large telescope. Marth's original description reads "eF, vS, lE (close to h. 2076)." Dreyer shortened the parenthetical comment to read "h2076 p". This is just enough different that it may have thrown both RC1 and RNGC off the trail; both noted it as identical to N6908. ===== NGC 6914 is the northern-most of three similar nebulae, probably all reflection nebulae -- the show up best on the POSS1 blue plate. Interestingly, the area on the red plate is dominated by a large HII region, centered 20-30 arcmin to the northeast of N6914. Are the reflection nebulae part of the same system of gas and dust, or are they merely superposed along the line of sight? I suspect the former, but of course can't say for sure. ===== NGC 6923 = IC 5004, which see. ===== NGC 6925 may also be IC 5015, which see. ===== NGC 6928 = IC 1325, which see. ===== NGC 6930 = IC 1326. See IC 1325 = NGC 6928. ===== NGC 6933 is usually taken as the double star centered a few arcsec northeast of Schultz's position. However, it is clear from Schultz's detailed note in his monograph that his object is actually the single southwestern star of the pair. He says of his object that it "... forms an elongated triangle with 2 stars north: star 9.5 mag preceding, star 10 mag following." His position, from 11 settings in RA and 8 in Dec on two different nights, agrees exactly with that measured on the DSS. The identification with the single star is not in doubt. Why did Schultz think it nebulous, though? His notes on the sky conditions give us clues. On 14 September 1865, his note reads, "Strong gale; images very unsteady," while on 26 August 1867, he has, "Aurora; sky first very fine, soon clouding." However, his description of the nebula itself reads, "Nebula is nearly stellar, its nebulous atmosphere scarcely perceptible; yet it looks quite differently from the surrounding stars, and has a peculiarly flickering light." By the time Schultz found this object, he was an experienced observer. His description reminds me of several of JH's descriptions of "nebulous atmospheres" around stars, stars which today show no sign at all of any accompanying nebulosity. ===== NGC 6938 is probably the scattered group of stars about a minute of time following WH's single position from 18 July 1784. There is a small core about 5 arcmin by 3 arcmin at the eastern end of a larger elongated grouping 18 arcmin by 8 arcmin -- both of these are clearly seen on the red POSS1, and both are elongated in the same position angle (about 105-110 degrees). On the blue POSS1, the small core is southeast of the center of a poorly-defined, nearly circular grouping of stars about 20 arcmin across. Even though JH saw the cluster (if that is what it is) twice, he was clearly not impressed. His first observation has no RA and only an approximate Dec. His description reads, "Very poor. The large star taken but carelessly, as it offers no interest." He did better the second time with a well-determined RA, but still only an approximate Dec, 3 arcmin south of his first estimate. He also misidentifies the cluster as "VII. 17" rather than "VIII. 17" as it properly is. ===== NGC 6950 looks like a good, if scattered, cluster on the POSS1 prints. It was seen by both WH and JH, and their positions and descriptions agree. Still, no one has included it in a cluster catalogue, and RNGC has it as not found. I suspect, though, that it could be easily dug out with a six- or eight-inch telescope. ===== NGC 6951 = NGC 6952, which see. ===== NGC 6952 = NGC 6951. Credited to Coggia, N6952 is clearly N6951 with a 20 arcmin error in its declination. The description is exactly right, and the note of a 15th magnitude star close following is also correct. Denning was apparently the first to notice the identity, but the note in IC1 gives the impression that it is the position for N6951 that is wrong. Dreyer corrects this in the IC2 Notes, but does not give a source. I suspect it is Herbert Howe's micrometric position that Dreyer is indirectly citing. I've not yet traced Coggia. Dreyer gives no clues in the introduction to the NGC, nor do I recall running across Coggia's name before. Any information would be welcomed. ===== NGC 6953 may be the group of five or six faint stars 17 seconds west of Swift's place noted by Howe and Bigourdan, and copied into the IC2 Notes. Or it may be the similar grouping of 12-15 stars three minutes of time east of Swift's position. There is no galaxy nearby. Swift found his object the same night as he found NGC 6951 (see NGC 6952 = NGC 6951 for another observation in the area), so we might expect that the same relative offsets might apply to both objects and lead us to the correct object for N6953. When we do this, however, we find that N6951 is east of Swift's position, while the sparser group of stars is west. So, I'm not even sure that the Howe/Bigourdan group is the correct identification. The number is flagged with a colon in the main table. ===== NGC 6959. This is a galaxy in the NGC 6962 group. Discovered by Lord Rosse or his observer (though incorrectly credited to Bigourdan in NGC), and measured by Bigourdan, the resulting accurate position pinpoints it exactly as object "a" in Lord Rosse's sketch. ===== NGC 6960, NGC 6974, NGC 6979, NGC 6992, NGC 6995, and IC 1340 are all part of the Veil Nebula, the wonderful supernova remnant in Cygnus. The various parts are so large, and most of them so bright, that the generally poor positions in the NGC don't matter. Only the position for NGC 6974 (which see) is completely off its intended part of the nebulosity. WH describes his "front-view" (what we now call the Herschelian focus of a reflecting telescope) in a note to his observation of NGC 6960. He writes that at the Newtonian focus the nebula extended one degree acorss the sky, while at the Herschelian focus, it stretched twice as far. He is clearly extremely pleased with the performance of his telescope in its "front-view" configuration, but I expect that the additional awkwardness in using it drove him to the Newtonian focus for most of his sweeping. In the IC2 Notes for NGC 6992, Dreyer paraphrases a short note by Pickering (at the end of an article in ApJ 23, 257, 1906) which describes the appearance of the entire Veil as seen on a 24-inch Bruce plate of 4 hours exposure. Unfortunately, Pickering chose to not publish the photograph; it would have made an impressive plate in this early ApJ paper. ===== NGC 6961. The identification is not sure. Since it is credited to Lord Rosse in the NGC, Dreyer apparently intended that the number apply to one of the five brightest objects in the N6962 group. However, Dreyer's own measurement (with Lord Rosse's telescope) on 23 August 1876 points at one of the fainter galaxies in the area. In addition, he claims that this object was found by d'Arrest, though he gives d'Arrest credit for NGC 6966 in the NGC. Micrometric positions by Bigourdan and Kobold agree with the one by Dreyer, so I've taken the measured galaxy -- located between those labeled "a" (N6959) and "d" (N6962) in Lord Rosse's diagram -- as N6961, rather than any of the brighter galaxies to the north. The evidence is contradictory, however, so I can't insist that this interpretation is correct. ===== NGC 6962 is the brightest in a group of 8-10 galaxies in Aquarius. It and the second brightest galaxy here, NGC 6964, were found by William Herschel, and remeasured by John Herschel. Of all the galaxies in the group, these two are the only ones with absolutely positive identifications. The others (N6959, N6961, N6963, N6965, N6966, N6967, I5057, I5058, and I5061) have all been misidentified at one time or another. I think that I've sorted out the mess as well as it can be, but the published record remains contradictory for a couple of the objects. See the separate discussions of the other NGC and IC numbers for more details. ===== NGC 6963 is a double star found by Bigourdan just northwest of NGC 6965 with which it is often confused. Bigourdan has two accurate measurements that point exactly to the double, and he also gives offsets to five neighboring objects in his remarks. All of these can be easily and positively identified with nearby stars or galaxies, so there is no question about this identification. ===== NGC 6964 is the second brightest galaxy in the N6962 group. See NGC 6962 for a general discussion. ===== NGC 6965 = IC 5058. This is the northern-most of the brighter galaxies in the NGC 6962 group. It was first found by Lord Rosse in 1857, and labeled "b" in his diagram. Unfortunately, it was apparently not seen again until Bigourdan went through the area a fifth time in 1891. Thus, the NGC position was apparently estimated by Dreyer from the diagram, and is not good enough to unambiguously identify the object. Bigourdan's entry under the number simply says "I can't see anything at the place indicated by Lord Rosse." He searched for it only once in August 1885. However, Bigourdan actually did see NGC 6965. It appears in his fourth list of new nebulae under the number Big 436, so received the number IC 5058. He has four measurements of it, so the position in the IC is good. That the object really is NGC 6965 could perhaps be questioned as we have only Lord Rosse's sketch to rely on. However, it is one of the brighter objects in the area, and the diagram is good enough to support the identification. ===== NGC 6966 is a double star. It is credited in the NGC to d'Arrest (incorrectly) and Bigourdan who provides an accurate position for it. d'A probably saw one of the brighter galaxies near NGC 6962 rather than this object. ===== NGC 6967. The eastern-most galaxy in the NGC 6962 group has been correctly identified by most catalogues except MCG and UGC which called it "NGC 6965." This error, combined with the correct identification in CGCG, led RC3 to include two entries for the galaxy, both, fortunately, under the correct number. See the RC3 errata paper for the correct data, which I summarize in the main table here. ===== NGC 6968 is not IC 5062, which see. Bigourdan saw and measured the two objects on the same night. ===== NGC 6973 and NGC 6980 are both stars near the NGC 6976/6977/6978 triplet. Bigourdan thought the stars slightly nebulous, so listed them among his "novae." His positions are excellent and identify the stars exactly. ===== NGC 6974 was found by the fourth earl of Rosse, and is clearly part of the Veil Nebula (see N6960 for general comments on this huge supernova remnant). However, LdR's nominal position for it falls in a pretty empty patch of sky inside the main loop, well away from any bright nebulosity. Bigourdan found no nebulosity here, either. RNGC, however, suggests that the number applies to a moderately bright patch on the northern side of the loop, southwest of NGC 6979, just a degree north of the nominal position. This is as good an idea as any about the object, but LdR's description does not match very well. LdR simply says, "Nebulous *, neby cE pf, RA = 20h 45.5m, NPD = 59d 50'+-." The part of the Veil that I've chosen has no clear star associated with it, and is not obviously extended in any particular direction, let alone east-west. I've marked the identification uncertain. Another, less likely, possibility is that N6974 is one of the 20 or so observations of NGC 6960 made with the 72-inch reflector. In this case, the position error would be in RA (5 minutes too large), and the description would have to read "cE ns." The star would be Kappa Cygni which JH took for the position of NGC 6960. I offer this as just a possibility, however; as I said, I'm inclined to think that the RNGC identification is more likely to be correct. ===== NGC 6975 = NGC 6976. Even Bigourdan, who "found" NGC 6975, admits that it is identical to N6976. Here is a free translation of his comment: "Does not exist. Because of an error of 180 degrees in the position angle estimate, Big 88 (= N6975) was thought to be new. It is identical to N6976." The RNGC is wrong. RC3 is also. ===== NGC 6976 = NGC 6975, which see. ===== NGC 6977. See NGC 6973. ===== NGC 6978. See NGC 6973. ===== NGC 6979 is a part of the Veil Nebula. WH's position for it is not particularly good, and points to a relatively faint piece of the supernova remnant. However, 7-8 arcmin to the southwest is a brighter piece that he could well have seen. I've taken this as NGC 6979. See NGC 6960 for more on the Veil. ===== NGC 6980 is a star. See NGC 6973. ===== NGC 6985. RC3 follows Skiff in placing this galaxy at 20 42 19.1 -11 17 14. This is correct, and my earlier "correction" was itself incorrect by one minute. Sorry about that (sigh). ===== NGC 6989 is listed as non-existent in RNGC. However, it seems to be a grouping in the northern reaches of the North America Nebula looking pretty much as WH saw it, "A large cluster of pretty small stars of several sizes." I put the position within a minute or two of WH's position, and make the diameter 8' by 8'. This may not, however, be a real cluster, but simply a random group of stars in the rich Milky Way field. And it may not be the object that WH saw. JH looked for his father's cluster, VIII 82, twice, once saying only "Viewed. A mere clustering portion of the Milky Way," without determining a position for it. The second night, he makes it a "Coarse, poor, pretty large cluster; stars small." He determined a position for it then, but it is 2 minutes, 15 seconds of time east, and 12.5 arcmin north of his father's position. So, when it came time to prepare the GC, he made two separate clusters out of the observations he had at hand. Since there are "clustering portions of the Milky Way" at both positions, I've kept JH's separate entries as they appear in GC and NGC. The other entry is NGC 6996, which see. NGC 6997 is a third cluster, probably a real one, in the North America Nebula. See its discussion for even more information. ===== NGC 6991. WH and JH saw two different clusters; JH mistakenly included them in GC under a single number. Dreyer, of course, followed GC for the NGC. I've included both in the table, so you get to choose which one you want. Here are the stories to help you along: WH describes his object as "A star 6 m surrounded by considerable stars forming a brilliant scattered cluster; the large star not in the middle, but following." His position is a couple of arcmin south of the bright star, but there is no mistaking the group that he saw. There is also some nebulosity on the preceding side of the cluster, but it is faint enough that neither of the Herschels saw it. JH has two observations of his cluster, which is smaller, fainter, perhaps a bit richer, and southwest of his father's. The first reads, "A star 11 m. The last of that magnitude in an irregular triangular cluster 6' diameter; poor and straggling." His second, from his next sweep, says simply, "A star 9 m; the largest of a cluster." His positions point pretty accurately to the stars he mentions, and his cluster is just as clear as his father's. But -- just as clearly -- the two clusters are not the same. Choose one if you wish. I'll take both. ===== NGC 6992 is part of the Veil Nebula. See NGC 6960 for a discussion. ===== NGC 6993 may be ESO 529-G011. Found by Leavenworth in the first seasons of observing with the 26-inch at Leander McCormick, its nominal position is particularly bad -- nearly 6 minutes of time and 13 arcmin off if the identity with the ESO galaxy is correct. Leavenworth's sketch more or less supports this notion, with the stars shown roughly in their right places with respect to the galaxy. Both the galaxy and the sketch also support his description of a small, bright nucleus surrounded by a fainter envelope. ===== NGC 6994 = M 73 is an asterism of four fairly bright stars. The Hipparcos data suggest that they are at different distances, so this is one of THE prototypical asterisms. ===== NGC 6995 is part of the Veil Nebula. The position I've chosen is more or less for the middle of the nebulous complex shown in JH's sketch, published as Figure 82 in his 1833 Slough Catalogue. He probably saw the knot we now call IC 1340 (which see) as well. Though it is off the southwest side of the sketch, the entire panel of the figure is filled with nebulosity, and I'm pretty sure that JH could have traced the nebula well beyond the boundaries he chose to include in his drawing. See NGC 6960 for more discussion of the Veil. ===== NGC 6996. This is a loose cluster, or rich region of the Milky Way, in the northern part of the North America Nebula. It has often been confused with NGC 6997 (which see) in the cluster catalogues, but the position from JH's single observation seems to be pretty good. However, JH was actually looking for his father's VIII 82, which eventually entered the catalogues as NGC 6989 (which see). As I note there, the positions that JH had when he was pulling together the GC are far enough apart that he made two different clusters out of the observations. I (1970, Griffith Observer) and Brent Archinal (1993, "non-existent" RNGC clusters monograph) present observations and further discussions of these objects. ===== NGC 6997 is a real cluster immersed in the "East Coast" part of the North America Nebula. Several of the cluster catalogues have confused it with NGC 6996, but the GC/NGC position, from a single observation by WH, is pretty good. As with NGC 6996, I (1970) and Brent (1993) have further discussions and observations. Reinmuth and Bigourdan pretty much agree with these assessments of the three clusters (N6989, N6996, and N6997) involved in the North America Nebula. And they wrote their descriptions long before Brent and I did, independently, and from different observing techniques. ===== NGC 7000, the North America Nebula. WH saw only the brightest southern-most portion of this huge emission region, "Central America." JH was uncertain if his father had in fact seen the same nebulosity as he did, as WH's position is nearly a degree south of his own (I put the approximate center even further north than JH did). The most detailed part of WH's description makes JH's question even more relevant: "7 or 8 arcmin long, 6 arcmin broad ..." It's no wonder that WH's number ended up in the NGC followed by a question mark. There are a couple of minor mysteries about this nebula. WH claims only one observation of it in his published catalogue, as does JH in his. Yet, in GC, JH has the total number of observations by himself and his father as "3." In addition, JH claims in his observation that the "RA [is] that of V. 37 from working list, not being settled by the observation." However, the RA he quotes is nearly a minute of time larger than WH's published RA. The RA that JH adopts for GC is not quite a mean of the two values, but is closer to WH's original. I wonder if WH had another observation that somehow was skipped when it came time for publication. ===== NGC 7010 = IC 5082. John Herschel's declination is 10 arcmin too far south. Howe pointed this out, and his correct position was copied into the IC2 notes by Dreyer. At about the same time, Bigourdan scanned the field looking for N7010. The object which he points to as the NGC object is a star (GSC 05779-00648). He did rediscover the galaxy, however, and measured the correct position for it on three different nights. Dreyer unfortunately failed to notice that Bigourdan's position and Howe's for N7010 are identical to within the mutual errors. So, he listed Bigourdan's object as IC 5082. ===== NGC 7011 is most likely the V-shaped group of about 15 stars 2-3 arcmin northwest of JH's position. While he gives no more information than a position and the brief non-description, "A cluster. No further description," the group is very eye-catching on the DSS. There are a few other stars scattered around it that might add to its "eye appeal" during a sweep. Wolfgang also picked this same group when he looked at the field. So, I've adopted the identification. ===== NGC 7023 is an impressive diffuse nebula in Cygnus, made more so by the obscuring dark cloud surrounding it. It makes a fine sight in a six-inch which will not see deeply enough to pick up what faint stars there are scattered around the nebula -- it appears to stand alone in a large void in the sky. There is no difficulty with the identification, though I am curious as to why JH did not pick it up. The NGC entry is based on a single observation by his father. ===== NGC 7024. Even though RNGC claims non-existence for this cluster, it is a very nice object of about 30 stars close to the NGC position. The diameter on the DSS is about 8' x 8', and the brightest stars are around 11th magnitude, not far off JH's estimate of 10. ===== NGC 7025. See NGC 7028. ===== NGC 7028. This may be lost. There is certainly no nebula near Marth's place, even though he claims to have verified the object. The closest candidate object is a triple star well to the southwest. Since there is no large systematic offset (in Marth's positions from the modern positions) for the other four objects that he found the same night (N7025, N7033, N7034, and N7056), I don't believe that the triple is Marth's object. A possible candidate is CGCG 448-039. It matches Marth's scanty description (very faint, small, very little extended), and the declination is the same, but the RA is over 2.5 minutes of time off. However, the large non-digit difference makes the identity difficult to accept, so I've put a question mark on it in the main table. ===== NGC 7033. See NGC 7028. ===== NGC 7034. See NGC 7028. ===== NGC 7036. Claimed "non-existent" in RNGC, this cluster is clearly seen on DSS and the POSS1 prints. I put the center about 4 arcmin south of JH's position, but otherwise it matches JH's brief description: "A scattered cluster of small stars." There are about 20 stars in the cluster scattered over an area of about 8 arcmin by 5 arcmin. ===== NGC 7037. JH describes this cluster as "... not very rich; irregular figure, 8' l[ong], 5' br[oad]; stars 11 ... 15 m." This is just the sort of cluster that exists at his position. There is also a more compact "core" of stars a couple of minutes to the northeast (I put this core at 21 08 55, +33 33.8 for 1950.0) that JH does not mention. In any case, JH's cluster is clear on the DSS. RNGC nevertheless has it as non-existent. ===== NGC 7039 is a very large cluster about 20 arcmin long and 7 arcmin wide. Though JH says it is "Extended from nf to sp," it is actually extended from the southwest (sp) to the northeast (nf). I suspect this is a simple error on JH's part, though visual observers might want to have a look at the cluster to be sure. The position that JH gives is for SAO 50547 on the northeastern edge of the cluster. On POSS1, DSS, and GSC, there are two overlapping concentrations of stars within the cluster. The position in the main table is for a point midway between the centers of these concentrations. ===== NGC 7040. The faint galaxy near Harrington's position does not match Dreyer's summarized description "eF, vL, mE ns," so I was originally inclined to believe that Harrington might have seen another object. Thanks to Brian Skiff, I have recently seen the original note in AN 2479. It reads in full, "New Nebula, by M. W. Harringtion, Director of the Observatory, Ann Arbor, Mich. I wish to put on record a nebula which I found Aug. 18th of this year and which I believe to be new. Its position is RA. 21h 7m 34s Decl. N. 8d 25m. It is 67s preceding and 12' north of Argelander 8d 4632. It is so faint that I can only see it after resting my eyes in the dark a few moments. It is about 3' long by half that in bredth and is extended nearly north and south, the northern end preceding a little. Ann Arbor 1882 Oct. 31." This makes it clear that Harrington really did see the galaxy. The extension along the north-northwest/south-southeast direction is almost certainly due to the line of faint stars on the southern side of the galaxy. For the record, Harrington overstates the galaxy's size -- he must have included the line of stars to the south. However, his the offsets (for J2000.0) from the BD star are 62.2 seconds and 12 arcmin 20 arcsec, close to his estimates. ===== NGC 7042. See NGC 7043. ===== NGC 7043 is very close to Marth's place northeast of NGC 7042. Reinmuth, however, lists N7043 as "Not found." I found, though, that he has the note in parentheses which indicates that the only plate available to him showing the object was less than optimal in some respect -- underexposed, or the object was near the edge of the plate, or perhaps covered by a defect, etc. His description of N7042, considerably brighter and including the note "difficult," is also in parentheses, so I am no longer surprised that N7043 did not show up on the plate. ===== NGC 7045 is a double star. JH says of it "eF; field feebly illuminated by moon, but I remained satisfied of its reality." He has only this single observation of it in Sweep 79. His position is only 30 arcsec north of the pair of stars, so the identification is pretty certain. Spitaler first identified the object as the double. Dreyer noted in the NGC that d'A failed to find the object on two nights. The pair was either too faint for his telescope, or he dismissed them as being obviously stellar. A curiosity: Bigourdan has six observations of the double on two different nights, and apparently thought it nebulous on both nights. He used it as the comparison object for his estimated positions for IC 5097 and IC 5098 (both of which see). ===== NGC 7048. There are several stars and faint knots "in" the interior of this planetary. Most of the stars are only optical companions along our line of sight to the nebula. One, however -- clearly seen on the DSS2B image and no other -- is the central star. I've adopted the position of this star. Just east of this on the DSS2R image is a tight group of faint knots; the star has disappeared from this R-band image. ===== NGC 7050 is another of RNGC's "nonexistent" clusters. However, close to JH's position, there is a group of about 15 12th to 15th magnitude stars scattered over an area about 5 arcmin by 2 arcmin. Even though JH left no description for his cluster, the group stands out from the field well enough that it is almost certainly the sparce swarm of stars that he saw. ===== NGC 7054 is another lost object. Found by Stephan, its position is the same in both the AN and MNRAS lists in which it appears. The comparison star also has the same position in both lists; that position is about an arcsecond off the GSC position. But no nebulosity or asterism exists at Stephan's position, or at the positions implied by sign errors in the offset. Furthermore, a search of the POSS1 prints shows no nearby star with an obvious nebula at the correct offset. Jim Caplan finds no trace of NGC 7054 in Esmiol's 1916 monograph, so this object has to be listed simply as "not found." ===== NGC 7056 = IC 1382, which see. Also see NGC 7028. ===== NGC 7074 is a double galaxy about 6 arcmin south of its nominal position. Both Bigourdan and Spitaler noted the displacement, but neither commented on the fact that this is one of Marth's "verified" nebulae. I'm a bit surprised that one of these is so far off its nominal position -- but there it is. Bigourdan has two additional objects (IC 5112 and 5113, which see) near N7074's nominal position, but both of these are either single stars or asterisms. ===== NGC 7084. JH calls this simply "A coarse scattered cluster." There is nothing obvious at his position, but about 30 seconds following there is indeed a cluster matching his description. JH has noted that the positions from the early sweeps are often untrustworthy, and this seems to be an example. Examining this on the POSS1 shows that it extends on to the north and east from the core that JH apparently saw. The overall size is 18 arcmin by 16 arcmin, while the core is 10 arcmin by 9 arcmin. This cluster stands out pretty well on the POSS prints, so RNGC's "no cluster" is a bit surprising. ===== NGC 7088 does not exist, even though around a dozen sightings have been reported of it in the literature, including one by Dreyer himself in the NGC Notes. The nominal position, from Baxendell, is about half a degree north of M2 (NGC 7089), but there is nothing there but faint field stars. About half a degree on to the northwest of the NGC position is a 1.5 degree long streak of interstellar "cirrus", dust well above the plane of the Galaxy reflecting the light of the Galactic disk back to us (see IC 336 for some of these dust clouds that are definitely in the catalogues). The cirrus is most easily visible in the IRAS 100-micron ISSA images of the area, though it also shows up in the 12-, 25-, and 60-micron images, and on the POSS1 prints, AND on the IIIa-J film copies of the latest optical surveys from Palomar and Siding Spring. While I suppose it is just vaguely possible that this may be Baxendell's object, his clear description of a southern boundary just 7 arcmin north of M2, and of a nearly round shape, almost certainly rules this out. The IRAS 100-micron images in particular show a "hole" in the dust north of M2, just the opposite of what we'd expect if the nebula were real. My own feeling about this object is that it may have been a reflection of some other object (perhaps even M2) within Baxendell's telescope or eyepiece, and that later observations are similar illusions simply "wished" into existence (see NGC 2529 and NGC 2531 for a discussion of two other such objects). Also see NGC 1990 where an apparently similarly illusory nebula has been seen around a bright star. ===== NGC 7089. Shawl and White's position, though correctly copied from their 1986 list, is apparently 2 seconds of time too large. The cluster's image on both POSS1 and POSS2, though burned out in the center, is elongated and symmetric about a position 33 arcsec west of the Shawl/White position. I suspect a typo in their table. Also see NGC 7088. ===== NGC 7091 = IC 5114. JH found this on 1 September 1834, about 6 months after he began observing from the Cape of Good Hope. He says of it "... place considerably uncertain having been found when much past the meridian in searching in vain for Dunlop 561." The RA and NPD are both given only to full minutes of time in his CGH Observations. Unfortunately, he precesses this imprecise (and inaccurate) position to 1860 and gives it to 0.1 seconds of time and NPD in GC. The only indication that it is an approximate position is on the "Number of times observed by H and h" -- that is given as "1::". Dreyer either ignored or missed that, so the object came into the NGC with its position given nominal accuracy (1 second of time and 0.1 arcmin of NPD) and with no note. The galaxy is a good ways off JH's position (1m 20s preceding, 7.5 arcmin north), but can be positively identified by JH's note "It precedes a * 6m nearly in the parallel, about 40 seconds of time." Swift's position is even further off -- see the IC 5114 entry for that story. ===== NGC 7093. JH does not tell us much about this cluster: "The chief star (9m) in a cluster of the 8th class. The double * No. 1660 of my fourth catalogue belongs to this cluster." The cluster is indeed little compressed and scattered, and is apparently centered about 2 arcmin south of JH's accurate position for the star. Visual confirmation would be desireable. ===== NGC 7095. The GC and NGC NPD's are wrong, probably copied by mistake from the NPD for NGC 7097. JH's CGH observations have the correct NPD. I incorrectly equated NGC 7095 and 7097 in the SGC, and ESO's two suggested identifications are also of course wrong. The correct object is ESO 027-G001 at 21 45 48, -81 45.9; this is PGC 67546 which is also in RC3. The NGC number should be attached to this object. ===== NGC 7096 = IC 5121, which see. ===== NGC 7097. See NGC 7095. ===== NGC 7098. The incorrect RA from JH's CGH observations (it is 2 minutes too large, probably a simple reduction or clock reading error) has been copied into various catalogues all the way up to RC2. RC3 used the correct position from ESO. ===== NGC 7100 is a star at Bigourdan's position. Unfortunately, his position as first published -- and as copied into the NGC -- is 14 seconds too large in RA, and 3 arcmin too small in Dec. This, combined with a 6 arcmin error in Marth's Dec for NGC 7101, has led several cataloguers to put the number 7100 on the galaxy that is properly called N7101. Marth's RA is correct and leads us to the right galaxy. The confusion began with Spitaler (copied into the IC 1 and IC 2 Notes), and continues today in UZC and LEDA. Bigourdan got the identifications correct, and his micrometric offsets -- when re-reduced -- lead to the correct objects. The identifications I've adopted are Bigourdan's. ===== NGC 7101. See NGC 7100. ===== NGC 7102 is probably also IC 5127, which see for the story. ===== NGC 7105 is one of the Leander-McCormick nebulae found by Leavenworth; its nominal position is particularly bad. Fortunately, Leavenworth left a sketch so that we can positively identify the nebula with MCG -02-55-001, about 25 arcmin southeast of the nominal position. ===== NGC 7112 = NGC 7113. Though Marth makes no mention of the star close west of the galaxy, there is little doubt that his object is the same as the one found by Swift 22 years later (Swift does mention the star). His position is just three arcmin north of the galaxy, and his description fits it well. A puzzle here is Howe's note: "A search on two nights failed to reveal this (NGC 7112)." Swift's position is not that far off the galaxy (six seconds west and less than an arcmin north) and Howe has recovered many other of Swift's nebulae much further away from the nominal positions. Perhaps the star is close enough on the sky to the galaxy that its light swamped that of the much fainter galaxy. Another puzzle is why CGCG ignored the NGC description of NGC 7112 with its note of the star and put the number on the fainter galaxy 4.2 arcmin to the south. My guess is that they had two NGC numbers at hand and two galaxies on the sky, and simply dumped the numbers on the galaxies without much thought. ===== NGC 7113 = NGC 7112, which see. ===== NGC 7114 = Nova Cygni 1876 = Q Cyg. Dreyer included this in the NGC because -- as he mentions in the Notes -- "Mr. Lohse assets that it is surrounded by nebulosity." There is no nebulosity around the star on the POSS1, but given the presence of expanding shells around other novae, it is possible that Lohse could have seen one around this nova, too. However, I would have expected that it would not completely disperse in the 75 years from the time of its outburst to the time the POSS plates were taken. Today, the star is at 16th magnitude. Within the errors of measurement, its position is unchanged from its discovery position. ===== NGC 7129 is a diffuse nebula enveloping three pretty bright stars. Both Herschels described it the same, and JH measured the position angles and distances of the two flanking stars with respect to the brightest, more central southern one, BD +65 1638. His mean position for the nebula, adopted in GC and NGC, is for that star. Bigourdan apparently did not read JH's 1833 description before he examined the area in the 1884, 1889, and 1895. Bigourdan applied NGC 7129 only to the patch of nebulosity to the northwest of JH's star C, the northeastern of the three stars. He also found a "new" nebula in 1895 around JH's star A, the south-central of the three. This now carries the number IC 5134 (which see). Another "nova" from Bigourdan, NGC 7133 (which see), was apparently an illusion as there is nothing near his place but faint stars. ===== NGC 7130 = IC 5135 (which see). JH's declination is 30 arcmin off. I suspect this is a transcription error with JH's minutes of NPD supposed to read "43" instead of "13". In any event, there is no question about the identification of the galaxy that JH saw. Would that that were true of Swift's "nova" as well ... ===== NGC 7132. Spitaler was the first to notice that Swift's RA of this galaxy is 22 seconds too large. However, Swift's description is not bad: "vF, pL, lE; bet 2 sts; 5 sts w? in the form of a pyramid. My memory locates the stars east of the nebula." Swift's memory is, however, wrong. The stars are to the west. ===== NGC 7133 does not exist. Bigourdan describes it as a "Pretty extended area, perhaps 2 arcmin across, in which I suspect some extremely faint nebulosity, at the extreme limit of visibility." There is nothing near his single micrometrically measured position but a few faint stars. My guess is that this is another of what he would call his "fausse images." ===== NGC 7134 is an arc of 4 stars 30 arcsec south of the 11th magnitude star mentioned in the NGC description. Howe (see the IC2 notes) was apparently the first to notice that there is no nebulosity associated with the astersim. ===== NGC 7135 appeared in Swift's 11th list (it is No. 209), but was saved from having an IC number given to it by Herbert Howe. Howe saw the star just preceding the object and the triangle of brighter stars also preceding, and realized that Swift's object must be the same as JH's. However, IC 5136 turned up in Swift's 12th list with a description that makes it sound like yet another observation of this galaxy (see the IC note for more discussion on that object). Since NGC 7130 is in the area, that and I5135 are also part of the mess that Swift made here. See those numbers for even more discussion. This, by the way, is one of the strangest galaxies in the sky, looking rather like a sting-ray, and having a lower surface brightness than a normal galaxy. It is probably the result of a recent collision; most of these pathological objects are. ===== NGC 7136 is probably a double star. There is nothing at Muller's crude place, but 3/4 minute east, there is the double (with two or three much fainter stars involved) with a fairly bright star following by 2 arcmin, just as Muller describes. Howe was the first to suggest this as Muller's object, and I've followed along for lack of anything better in the immediate area. A more extended search would be useful. ===== NGC 7143 is a curving line of five stars at JH's position. He suspected that the object might be a nebulous double star, but the Birr Castle observers saw no nebulosity here. Hence, Dreyer has a short note in the NGC saying that the object is probably only a very faint double. On the POSS1 and DSS, however, the asterism is a striking object, and I can easily see why JH picked it up while sweeping. His double star is probably the brighter northeastern pair; Wolfgang's position applies to this pair. Lord Rosse and his observers did talk about a small cluster in two of their observations, however, and I'm a bit surprised that Dreyer did not include a number in NGC for it. ===== NGC 7148 is a double star. Observed three times on two nights by d'A, its identity is pinned down not only by d'A's accurate absolute position, but also by his relative position to NGC 7149 just 2.5 arcmin to the south. N7149 was observed the same three times on the same two nights, so there is no mistaking the identity of N7148 as anything but the double star. LEDA has nevertheless incorrectly taken a double galaxy, much too faint for d'A to have seen with his 11-inch telescope, as NGC 7148. The galaxies are also well off the mean of d'A's three accordant positions. Tsk. ===== NGC 7149. See NGC 7148. ===== NGC 7150 is an asterism of four or five stars found by Bond in February 1848 with the 15-inch Harvard refractor soon after it was installed. Though Bond describes it only as "A nebula," there is no nebulosity associated with the stars. Bond's position is good, so there is no doubt about the identification. ===== NGC 7155 = IC 5143, which see. ===== NGC 7158 is a triple star. It is precisely identified by Muller's note "* 9.5 PA = 40 deg, distance = 2.8 arcmin." Both Bigourdan and Howe found the object 0.6 minutes following a typically poor Leander McCormick position, and there it still is on the sky today. ===== NGC 7161 is apparently a group of three double stars about 2 arcmin south of d'A's position. However, his two descriptions are inconsistent, with only the second suggesting his object is a cluster. Both descriptions mention the 10th magnitude star 11 seconds preceding the object, and both also mention the two flanking 14th magnitude stars (though d'A puts them at 16th magnitude, a common occurance in the 19th century before good photometry was available). This object appeared first in GC thanks to a list of 125 new nebulae that d'A sent directly to JH; thus the entry "d'Arrest, 115" in GC. D'A next published a summary list of many of his novae in AN 1500. This object is number 194 there. Finally, when d'A's massive monograph appeared a few years later, the full observations finally appeared. Given the problem with the declination, I'm not completely happy with the identification. Reinmuth called the object simply a double star, and RNGC followed along. The brightest of the three pairs is the northern most, so I can see why it might be taken as d'A's object. The position I give, though, is a mean for all three -- but I'm not sure that this is the correct interpretation. Perhaps a complete translation of d'A's Latin notes would help. ===== NGC 7164. This galaxy is clearly identified by Leavenworth's comment, "4 vF stars north." This places it about two minutes of time west of its catalogued position, another example of the "standard offset" in the early Leander McCormick right ascensions. There is an interesting footnote to this NGC object in Bigourdan's unsuccessful search for it. See IC 1415 for the story. ===== NGC 7175 is probably part of the Milky Way. JH's position applies to "The chief * 9 m of a vL, loose clustering group which fills two fields, and is pretty rich of large stars." Checking the POSS1, I see such a grouping of a few dozen stars, roughly 30 arcmin by 20 arcmin, oriented pretty much east- west, and centered about 3 arcmin southwest of JH's 9th magnitude star. However, about 30 arcmin south is a smaller, sparcer, but much more obvious clustering of brighter stars. Years ago, I suggested that this might be JH's object. It is much too small, though, to "fill two fields" (30 arcmin), and JH's position is very close to the bright star he mentions. So, while his object is less obvious on the POSS, it is almost certainly the one he saw. ===== NGC 7186 is an asterism of at least eight stars about three arcmin southwest of WH's single position. Though he describes it as "5 or 6 stars forming a parallelogram with mixed nebulosity, verified 240," there is no nebulosity. Bigourdan and Reinmuth got the correct object. ===== NGC 7190. See IC 1424. ===== NGC 7193. While this is another of RNGC's "non-existent" clusters, it is clearly seen on DSS and the POSS1 prints about 30 seconds preceding JH's position (he cautioned that many of the positions from early sweeps -- this is from Sweep 14 -- are unreliable). The core is a band of 11 stars, 6 arcmin by 1 arcmin, stretching from the northwest to the southeast. There are other stars scattered around it, primarily to the south and west. ===== NGC 7201. See NGC 7202. ===== NGC 7202 is a star. JH has only one observation of it, though he swept the area three times. Interestingly, he never saw more than three objects in this field in any sweep, and picked up only two in one sweep. Nevertheless, he entered the group as four nebulae in GC, in spite of his descriptions clearly stating that there were only three nebulae in the area. Still, this is not a compact group, with N7201 and N7204 being separated by 13.5 arcmin, so he probably realized that he could have easily missed one. He stresses in a note that the RA is determined relative to NGC 7203 -- he puts it exactly one second of time preceding. The declination difference also puts N7202 exactly 3.0 arcmin south, so I suspect that this, too, is a relative determination, perhaps a simple estimated distance. In any case, the object at the offset is a star; it matches JH's description ("eF, S, star like") as well. ===== NGC 7203. See NGC 7202. ===== NGC 7204. See NGC 7202. ===== NGC 7210 is lost. There are notes about it in GC and NGC. Dreyer has a note in LdR's 1880 monograph that the object is the only nebula found by JH in Sweep 103 (I scanned JH's 1833 list between 14 hours and 8 hours, and found no others). In addition, JH marked both RA and Dec with double colons; he apparently had reason to doubt the position. Finally, his north polar distance is one degree less in the 1833 list than it is in GC (Dreyer adopts the GC position for NGC) -- this was apparently not noticed by anyone who tried to find N7210. Unfortunately, there is nothing matching JH's description at either position. For the record, that description reads, "eF, R, bM, ill-defined; a vF double star 45 deg np 4 arcmin dist points just to it." I scanned the POSS1 prints for several degrees around JH's nominal position, but found no galaxy in the area with a faint double where JH placed it. So, even with two positions and a striking description, the object remains at large. ===== NGC 7211. Marth's RA is exactly 1 minute of time too large. There is nothing at his given position, and the galaxy a minute preceding his position matches his description exactly. ===== NGC 7226. Holden describes this as a "pB Neb connected with a small cluster of stars which radiate in two streams from f to p side. Diam of neb 5', of cl 15', np in p = 315 deg is a small knot which may be nebulous." His "neb" is actually a small cluster, and the "knot" is composed of only four stars. The two streams of stars, pretty clearly visible on the DSS, are probably random field stars. If they are in fact a cluster, the size is about 10 arcmin by 7 arcmin. ===== NGC 7234 = NGC 7235. N7234 was found by WH. Reducing his observation as given in Dreyer's 1912 Collected Papers gives a position considerably different from the one given in GC and NGC. Auwer's reduced position agrees with the correctly reduced one, so this must be an error in CH's reduction of her brother's data. In any event, the correct position lands right on NGC 7235 found by JH who did not record anything at his aunt's position for N7234. ===== NGC 7235 = NGC 7234, which see. ===== NGC 7238 is lost. Swift describes it as "pF, S, R, mbM; 4 sts in form of a square nr p." There is nothing like this for several degrees around his position on the POSS1 prints (I haven't yet looked at larger distances: one hour east or west, 10 or 20 degrees north or south). There is little systematic offset in the positions of the other objects he found the same night, though several have large RA errors (10 or 20 seconds of time), and one (NGC 716 = IC 1743) has a large declination error. So, lost. ===== NGC 7242. See IC 5195. ===== NGC 7245. Pulling this cluster up on the DSS, I wondered at first if the somewhat richer, but more distant cluster at 22 13 37.4, +54 09 38 (King 9) might have been seen by one of the Herschels. However, reducing both their positions to B1950.0 makes it clear that they both saw the same, nearer, poorer cluster: both positions are within an arcminute of the center as I see it on the DSS. ===== NGC 7246 = IC 5198, which see. ===== NGC 7253 is an interacting double system with a bridge between the galaxies, plumes streaming off both, and lots of dust. In the blue, the brightest parts of the galaxies are knots in the disrupted arms. The images smooth over quite a bit in the red, but in the near-infrared, the two galaxies appear almost normal -- thin bulges evenly rising to bright nuclei. It is these bright nuclei that I have preserved as the positions for the two objects, with one of the bright knots in the southeastern object as an optical highlight. ===== NGC 7255. This object is positively identified with Leavenworth's sketch. RC3 is correct. ===== NGC 7261. JH's cluster is probably the scattered group of pretty bright stars, stretching nearly north-south across an area 15' by 10', about 20 seconds preceding his position for the bright star on its following edge. There is a smaller core (7' by 5') of generally fainter stars about five arcminutes north-northeast of the center of the larger group. Is this perhaps a background cluster? ===== NGC 7268 is correctly identified by ESO-LV, which means that the NGC RA is about 1 min off. The galaxy is double. Also see the SGC. ===== NGC 7281. JH's position is about 30 seconds of time preceding the center of the cluster, but it is large enough (15' by 9') that the difference does not affect the identification. ===== NGC 7283. Found by Marth, there is nothing near his unverified position aside from a double star about two arcmin preceding. It's possible that he saw CGCG 452-017 a minute of time following his published position, but it would also be 2.5 arcmin north. I'm leaning toward the smaller positional error, but do not want to insist on the double. So, both objects are listed in the main table. ===== NGC 7287 may be the double star listed in the main table. This is Howe's identification for an object found by Frank Muller with the 26-inch refractor at Leander-McCormick. His description fits Muller's except for the magnitude: Muller makes his object 15.0, while Howe puts his at 11.5 + 11.5 for a total of 10.7! The position angles are the same, though: 150 deg (Muller runs it on around the circle to 330 deg), as are the separations at 6 arcsec. On the DSS, Howe's "double" is actually a triple in a line at PA = 145 deg, with the largest separation being about 12-13 arcsec. The magnitude, as nearly as I can judge it, is about half way between the two earlier estimates. So, this could well be Muller's object. However, Dreyer has an interesting note in IC2: "Ho[we] says that the RA is about 2 minutes too great, and that the object is only a F D*, dist 6 arcsec. But he must have found a different object, as Burnham (Lick Obs, ii, p. 180) [which I have not seen] without noticing any great error in RA, gives Pos 60 deg, Dist 20 arcsec, and states that the p one is undoubtedly a nebula, while the f one may be a star." Muller's published position falls in group of galaxies, one of which is a double with a star nearby roughly in the configuration noted by Burnham. I've included this in the main table, too, as it may be Burnham's object. This, too, could have been the object seen by Muller -- his telescope was certainly big enough to pull in the photons. But with Howe's stars being brighter, near the 2 minute RA offset shared by several other of the Leander-McCormick nebulae, and with their sharing the correct description with Muller's original observation, I'm more inclined toward them. Hence, they have only one query in the table, while the galaxies and star that Burnham may have seen have two question marks. ===== NGC 7294 = IC 5225. The NGC RA is about 2 minutes of time off. It was first corrected by Howe who had nothing more to say about the object. However, the galaxy was also picked up by Lewis Swift in October of 1897 along with IC 5226 (which see also). See IC 5225 for more on Swift's observations. ===== NGC 7295 = NGC 7296. The equality rests on the supposition of a 30 arcminute error in JH's position for NGC 7295. JH himself suggests the identity in his 1833 list, noting h2163 as "VII. 41?". His description ("A Milky Way straggler; a poorish cluster of stars 12 ... 13m."), though scanty, matches N7296, so I'm adopting the identity. ===== NGC 7296 = NGC 7295, which see. ===== NGC 7300 is probably also IC 5204, which see for the story. ===== NGC 7302 = IC 5228. See IC 5204 for the details. ===== NGC 7303 is not = NGC 7304 as is sometimes stated, nor is it the double star (= Big. 452, but not in IC2 as Dreyer had noted the stellar character of the pair in 1875 while observing with LdR's Leviathan) southwest of the galaxy. It is the galaxy found by JH, and is clearly identified as such by d'Arrest who saw N7304 (which see for more) only once. ===== NGC 7304 does not exist. It was seen only once by d'A who put it 137 arcsec away from NGC 7303. He looked for it the second time that he observed N7303, but could not find it again. There are no objects, not even single stars, in the area where d'A put it that one night. For a while, I thought that the asterism of three stars 168 arcsec northeast of N7303 might be d'A's object, but these are very faint stars. Observing the area with a telescope larger than d'A's, Bigourdan tried and failed on three nights to find N7304. Dreyer, using the largest telescope in the world, could not find N7304 in spite of having "... looked most attentively for ..." it. All the observers had no problems with N7303 (which see for more). ===== NGC 7308 = IC 1448. The poor position from the first Leander-McCormick list led Javelle to overlook the NGC number. Herbert Howe, however, caught the mistake and correctly identified the galaxy. It is about 40 seconds of time east and 3 arcmin north of Leavenworth's position. A sketch would not have helped to identify this as Leavenworth correctly notes, "No star in field." ===== NGC 7325 is a close double star north preceding a slightly fainter single star. There can be no question as to the identity: Schultz's accurate position pinpoints the object he was looking at, and Lord Rosse's observer's offsets (distance and position angle) land on exactly the same object. The RNGC is of course wrong (RNGC 7325 is a relatively bright star superimposed on a much fainter galaxy). ===== NGC 7326 is, like NGC 7325 (which see), a close double star, though somewhat fainter. It is almost directly west of the nucleus of NGC 7331. Again, the distance and P.A. measured with the 72-inch at Birr Castle pinpoint the double; and again, RNGC is wrong. ===== NGC 7327, unfortunately, is one of those "....many novae merely alluded to in (Tempel's) published notes." A rough translation by me of what Tempel has to say about N7327 in his published article doesn't really help much, but here it is: "Of my eight companions [to N7331], Lord Rosse has still not seen two; one [N7338, which see] is located in the middle of the four brighter companions following, closer to the two southern objects; while the eighth [N7327] precedes the northern end of the spindle." That is it. Tempel gives no accurate positions or offsets, so all we have are the numbers published in the NGC to lead us to the area. There is nothing in the immediate vicinity but stars. However, about 4 arcmin northwest is a compact galaxy with a star superposed (I think the object is the one that RNGC incorrectly chose for N7325, which see) that might have been within range of Tempel's telescope. I've chosen it as a possibility for his object. However, there are four stars scattered around the NGC position. The brightest is 1.5 arcmin southwest, the faintest is 1.1 arcmin north-northeast, and the intermediate stars are 0.9 arcmin southeast and 0.9 arcmin east- northeast. One of these is taken to be N7327 in RC1, MCG, and RNGC. Given that so many of Tempel's new "nebulae" in other fields (see, e.g. NGC 4322 and NGC 4768/9) are stars or asterisms, it is actually more likely that one of these stars is his object than the galaxy that I give in the table. But which one? So, I put them all in the table with question marks everywhere. ===== NGC 7331. See NGC 7327 and NGC 7335. ===== NGC 7333 is a single star. Again, Schultz's accurate RA and Dec make the identification absolutely certain. The double star mentioned in the RNGC is taken directly from Carlson's 1940 article in Ap. J. Carlson misquotes Reinmuth (who got the right object, but called it a "nebulous star 15, star 14 p 0.7 arcmin)" as noting a double star. So, I suppose that we could say that the RNGC is half right in this case. ===== NGC 7335, 7336, 7337, and 7340 are correctly identified by just about everybody except the Lick astronomers who, as Steve Gottlieb notes, have thoroughly mangled the identifications in the area of NGC 7331. ===== NGC 7336. See NGC 7335. ===== NGC 7337. See NGC 7335. ===== NGC 7338, the second of Tempel's two objects in the area of NGC 7331, is most likely the double star about 3' sf N7335. Tempel notes that it is closer to the two southern galaxies following N7331 than to the two northern ones, even though the position that Dreyer quotes is a bit off. ===== NGC 7340. See NGC 7335. ===== NGC 7348. See NGC 7350. ===== NGC 7349. I agree with Steve Gottlieb's identification. In the SGC, I note the position as being 1 deg off. ===== NGC 7350 and NGC 7353 are two of a trio of nebulae discovered by Marth in August 1864. The third object, found the same night as N7350 and N7353, is N7348 and is the only one of the three listed near its discovery position in modern catalogues. N7350 is given as non-existent in RNGC which also suggests the galaxy at 22 37.1 +11 31 as N7353. RC3 accepted this identification. This, however, is incorrect as there is a faint galaxy close to Marth's position (22 38.9 +11 40) that he could have seen with Laselle's 48-inch reflector. N7350 is possibly a star with one or two faint companions, again near its discovery position. While the identification of NGC 7350 is not secure, that for NGC 7353 is. So, RC3 and RNGC got the wrong object. ===== NGC 7352. JH describes this as "A star 9-10m, chief of a p rich, vL, very coarse cluster." His position coincides with SAO 034672, but the "cluster," if it exists at all, is indeed "very coarse." I see nothing around the star that is at all eyecatching. Perhaps a sweep across the field with a telescope might draw out JH's object. There is, however, five minutes of time following JH's place, a more obvious clustering of stars scattered across an area about 15 arcmin by 10 arcmin. There are about 30 stars from the 9th to the 12th magnitudes. If this is the group that JH had in mind, his star is on the western edge of the group about two arcmin northwest of his position. This "cluster" is apparently not catalogued, and I suspect that it is merely a concentration of unrelated stars along the line of sight in the rich Milky Way field. I also think that it does not match JH's description of "very coarse." However, it, too, should be examined at the eyepiece. ===== NGC 7353. See NGC 7350. ===== NGC 7355. There is a one degree error in JH's CGH position that was copied faithfully into GC and NGC. The correct galaxy is pinned down, however, by JH's note about the double star 40 seconds following the galaxy. The double is there, and is bright enough that it might well be a noteworthy object on its own. ===== NGC 7361 = IC 5237. JH's RA is just 2 minutes of time out. This is obviously a digit error as his NPD and description are correct. Curiously, Swift's RA is also about 2 minutes out, but in the other direction. See IC 5237 for that story. ===== NGC 7374. See IC 1452. ===== NGC 7383. See NGC 7384. ===== NGC 7384 is a star about 5 arcmin southeast of NGC 7383. Both objects were found by LdR; while N7383 has been measured, the only reference to N7384 in his monograph is in the sketch of the group around N7385 and N7386. Dreyer unfortunately got the offset wrong for his description of the object (for north following, read south following), but the position implies the right direction. However, having said all that, I have to say that there is not one star near the position, but five. These are spread over an area of one by two arcmin, and form two triangles with a single star at the common vertex in the middle of the group. It is this star that I've entered in the main table, but the "correct" object could be any of the others. ===== NGC 7385. See NGC 7384. ===== NGC 7386. See NGC 7384. ===== NGC 7387. See NGC 7388. ===== NGC 7388 is a star 4.5 arcmin north-northeast of NGC 7387. Unlike N7384 (which see), LdR has a micrometric measurement of N7388 with respect to N7387. In turn, he also measured two stars southeast of N7388. While not exact, the numbers he published are quite good enough to show that N7388 is not the faint galaxy another 1.5 arcmin on to the north. ===== NGC 7394 is a scattered group of pretty bright (9-11m) stars including JH's double. Stretched out in a ragged band 12 arcmin by 5 arcmin to the northwest is an extension to the core (8 arcmin by 5 arcmin) that JH describes: "A double star, the last of a poor cluster of about a dozen stars." I doubt that all this is a part of any physical cluster, but proper motions and photometry should tell us eventually. ===== NGC 7403 is a star, another of those mistaken for a nebula by the Harvard observers in the late 1850's. The NGC position is more accurate than that published in AN, and probably comes from the Harvard Zone catalogue. Dreyer's note in the first IC indicates some interest in the object, and shows that Coolidge was the only observer to suspect any nebulosity around the star. ===== NGC 7404 = IC 5260, which see. ===== NGC 7405 is lost. Marth found this in August of 1864, describing it merely as "eF, S, R." Though his position was copied faithfully into the NGC, there are no galaxies nearby that Marth could have seen. The nearest object fitting his description that he could have picked up is NPM1G +12.0573, chosen by RNGC and Wolfgang Steinicke to carry the NGC number. However, it is 40 seconds of time preceding and 7 arcmin north of Marth's position, not an obvious error to make. Another candidate is CGCG 430-021 -- but that is even further away at 2 minutes 45 seconds of time preceding and 5 arcmin north. My own desperate, last-ditch, guess is that Marth picked up one of the faint stars nearer his position, but I have no idea which one. He found ten other nebulae that same night, but there is no significant systematic offset in his positions for them from the modern positions, and all are within 1.5 arcmin of his nominal positions. So, N7405 stands alone among them as unrecoverable. ===== NGC 7413 and NGC 7414 are two nebulae found on 2 Sept 1886 by Lewis Swift. Both are entered in NGC as "eeF," "R," and "v diffic;" with N7413 being "pS" and "s of 2", and N7414 being "S" and "n of 2." This, and the positions, would imply a pair of similar galaxies, oriented north-south, separated by 2.5 arcmin. Curiously, Howe has two apparently independent observations of NGC 7413 in which he corrects the position by 14 seconds of time. However, he does not mention NGC 7414 in either observation. If the pair were nearly identical objects as the NGC implies, then I would have expected Howe to at least mention N7414 and give a correction to its RA, too. Turning to Swift's original paper, we find considerably different descriptions for the two objects. N7413 = Sw IV-87 is "eeF, pS, R, e diff; 8 or 10 sts in an irregular line p; s of 2." N7414 = Sw IV-88 is "eeeF, S, R, eee diff; n of 2." Given this, I find it considerably easier to believe in RNGC's choice of the very faint northeastern galaxy as N7414. NGC 7413 does have the irregular line of stars preceding it, so this is pretty clearly Swift's object, even though his RA is well off. ===== NGC 7414. See NGC 7413. ===== NGC 7416. See IC 1376 and IC 1528. ===== NGC 7418. Dreyer suggested that this might be IC 5265 (which see), but it is not. ===== NGC 7423 is a nice, compressed cluster at the NGC position. It sits between two brighter stars, and would probably be an interesting, if faint, object at the eyepiece. JH was not sure in his 1833 catalogue if this was his father's III 745 or not. When he compiled the GC, however, he adopted his own position and his father's description. This is actually the best combination as both are correct. WH's position, however, is a minute of time east of the JH's position. Dreyer noticed this when he published all of WH's papers in 1912, and wrote a short note about it. In that note, Dreyer also mentions "In the sweep a star 6 mag = +56 2923 is 3m 41s f, 10' s." Doing the math from WH's reference star (Delta Cephei) for III 745, the BD star ends up close to its true position -- but III 745 is stubbornly 1 minute of time off. Curiously, RNGC calls the cluster non-existent though it is clear on the POSS, and is included in the cluster catalogues as Berkeley 57 (that identity was apparently first noticed by Alister Ling in 1985). SIMBAD mistakenly equates the cluster with a faint planetary (an infrared source) a few arcmin to the northeast. ===== NGC 7431 is pinpointed by Bigourdan's micrometric observation as a double compact galaxy just three arcmin preceding NGC 7433. The NGC position, derived from Bigourdan's observation, is fortuitously within one or two arcsec of the true position. The brighter preceding object is included in GSC, and is one of the Lick Northern Proper Motion survey reference galaxies. ===== NGC 7433 and NGC 7435 are galaxies close to NGC 7436, the brightest object in a subgroup of a cluster. All three objects, along with the fainter component of NGC 7436, are shown in Lord Rosse's sketch of the field. Though the NGC positions are not too good, the sketch positively identifies the objects that Dreyer catalogued. Bigourdan's observations of NGC 7433 and NGC 7435, by the way, refer to stars, while d'Arrest measured NGC 7435 (not N7433 as noted in the NGC) as well as N7436. ===== NGC 7435. See NGC 7433. ===== NGC 7436. See NGC 7433. ===== NGC 7438. JH describes this as "A large oblong cluster which fills two fields. Place that of the double star h. 3157 of my fifth Catal." DSS and POSS show a cloud of stars, elongated southwest to northeast, more compressed on the southwestern end into two apparent clusters separated by about 10 arcmin. Though well-defined on that end, it is very poorly defined on the northeastern side. The overall dimensions are roughly 30 arcmin by 10 arcmin. I doubt that the entire group is a cluster, though the southeastern-most two clumps might well be. Those portions of JH's object could stand out well in even small telescopes since the stars are fairly bright, 9th to 11th magnitudes. ===== NGC 7441 is probably IC 1458. Even though Ormond Stone's position is well east of the galaxy -- as many of the Leander McCormick positions are -- there is a 10th magnitude star preceding the galaxy as in his description, and the galaxy itself also matches the description well. Stone marked the declination with a question mark, so it's not surprising to find that it is 30 arcmin off. The galaxy usually taken as N7441, MCG -01-58-013, fits only Stone's position (and then only the declination is close), not the description. In particular, there is no 10th magnitude star preceding the galaxy; the nearest star of any consequence is 14th magnitude and 1.7 arcmin northeast. Still, because of the better positional coincidence, I've included the galaxy as a possibility for Stone's object. ===== NGC 7447 does not exist. It appears as a nebula in the Markree Catalogue, but has not been seen again. Auwers, Tempel, and Burnham all failed to find it. Dreyer says that Burnham also noted a "F triple star a little np the place", but I do not see anything with about 10 arcmin that could be called a triple star. I have not seen the entry in the Markree Catalogue, so do not know if it or the NGC entry might contain a typo. In any event, there is nothing at all near the place, not even a star bright enough to be included in the Markree list. ===== NGC 7452 is probably the second-brightest object in a poor cluster with N7459 (which see) being the brightest. Swift's RA is bad, but it is off in the same direction as are his RAs for N7459 and N7455 (which also see); he found all three objects on 14 October 1884. Interestingly, Howe probably picked this up, too. See N7459 for more. ===== NGC 7453 is a triple star at Peters's position. On the IIIa-J plate, the images of the stars overlap. They are also almost in contact with the 11th magnitude star 15 arcsec north that Peters noted in his description. ===== NGC 7455. Is this perhaps Encke's Comet of 1885? Swift claims that he found the nebula while searching for the comet. There is nothing near his place, and the galaxy usually taken as N7455 does not have a "pS * nr p" as Swift notes. As Howe first noted, the star is 10th magnitude and 6 arcmin northeast of the galaxy. Also, Swift's brief description (eF, cE) might fit a comet quite well. Still, the RA is off in the same direction as are those for N7452 and N7459 (both of which see), and Howe picked up the galaxy in spite of its faintness. ===== NGC 7459 is probably the double cD galaxy in a poor cluster of galaxies. Swift found only three galaxies on the night of 14 October 1884 -- this, N7452 (which see) about 20 seconds of time preceding it, and N7455 (also which see) about half a degree north. Assuming reasonable identifications for the three, Swift's RA's are well off for all the objects (-21s for N7452, -38s for N7455, and -29s for N7459), though his declinations are within 30 arcsec in each case. For this particular object, his position and description relative to N7452 fit reasonably well. This is "eeF, pL, R; * nr; sf of 2," while N7452 is "eeeF, pL, R, e diff; np of 2." Since Howe apparently saw this when he examined the field; he "suspected another nebula preceding about 15 seconds;" this was most likely N7452, the second brightest object in the cluster. See it and N7455 for more about the field. ===== NGC 7468 is not IC 1465 (which see). Bigourdan measured both objects on the same nights, and actually used N7468 as a comparison "star" on one of those nights. ===== NGC 7471 is lost. Seen only once by Frank Muller with the Leander McCormick 26-inch refractor, there is nothing within several degrees of its position that comes close to matching his description, accurately copied into the NGC (Muller made the magnitude 15.8, and the size 0.2 arcmin). There is no sketch. Wolfgang chose a 19th magnitude galaxy 3+ arcmin southeast of the nominal position. That, however, is too faint, has no 10th magnitude stars 20 seconds preceding, and has a different position angle; it cannot be the object that Muller saw. I have not checked large digit errors (10 degrees, 1 hour, etc). Someone with more time and patience than I might uncover Muller's nebula that way. ===== NGC 7472 = NGC 7482. Burnham (and Dreyer in an IC1 Note) suggest that these are also identical with NGC 7477 (which see). But they are not. The two numbers DO refer to the same galaxy, but d'Arrest's object is a different one. In this case, Struve's RA is 2 minutes of time too small, but his Dec is correct, as is his brief description (in a rough translation by me) "Faint small star ('sternchen') with nebulous envelope." The RA error is probably a transcription error. Marth's position is close to the galaxy, and his description "F, vS, stellar" is also appropriate. ===== NGC 7477 is an asterism of two stars superposed on a fainter galaxy close to d'Arrest's position. It is not, as supposed by Burnham (and Dreyer in an IC1 Note), identical to NGC 7472 = NGC 7482 (which see). D'Arrest describes a 17th magnitude star which is attached to his nebula to the north. N7482 has no such star to the north, while the asterism does (there is also an even fainter star to the southeast that d'A did not see). D'A also discusses Struve's object and suggests that it is identical to his (d'A's). Since Marth's observations had not yet been published when d'A drew up his monograph, this was a reasonable assumption on d'A's part. However, it is probably wrong. Struve's description matches N7482 very well, and d'A's asterism only roughly. ===== NGC 7481 is also lost. Described by Ormond Stone as being of magnitude 14.0, very small, round, and gradually brighter in the middle, it is certainly not the galaxy that ESO chose as a possible candidate. That is too faint, elongated, has a brighter star superposed just east, and an equally bright companion galaxy within an arcminute to the northeast. A search of the POSS1 prints around the nominal position reveals no galaxy matching Stone's description. Since there is no sketch, and Stone mentions no nearby stars, we probably won't be able to recover this object. As with NGC 7471, I have not checked for large digit errors. ===== NGC 7482 = NGC 7472, which see. ===== NGC 7485. See NGC 7486. ===== NGC 7486 is a tight group of four stars about two arcmin southeast of N7485. Copeland found it on 25 August 1871 with LdR's 72-inch, and Dreyer managed a quick micrometric measurement with the same telescope on 3 December 1877 just before "Clouds and fog came on." That measurement, with respect to N7485 -- position angle 109.5+- degrees, distance 114 arcsec -- pins down the asterism exactly. ===== NGC 7493 is a star. Its micrometrically measured position and its description, from a single observation by Bigourdan in October 1886, clearly identifies it. Bigourdan was not so sure about it the second time he saw it: "Star 13.3 around which I suspect an exceedingly faint trace of nebulosity of which the existence is not certain." ===== NGC 7502 is a triple star (at first glance a double) 32 seconds of time west, and 1 arcmin north of the nominal position from a single observation by Frank Muller with the 26-inch refractor at Leander-McCormick. The combined magnitude of the stars, their separation, and their position angle all agree with Muller's estimates (15.8, 0.3 arcmin, and 290 degrees). In addition, he notes the possibility that the object is only a double star. The southeastern "star" is itself double which undoubtedly added to the impression of nebulosity. ===== NGC 7504 may be a star, as first noted by Reinmuth. It was one of eleven nebulae found by Marth one night late in the summer of 1864 (his date reads "1864.67"), and the only one not clearly a galaxy. The other ten have a systematic offset in their positions estimated by Marth of -1.0 seconds in RA, and +0.6 arcmin in Dec from the modern positions. Applying these to his position for N7504 moves the position a bit closer to the star that Wolfgang and I chose as Marth's possible object. However, it is still further from its modern position than most of Marth's other objects from that same night. So, I am not at all sure of the identification of N7504 with this star. There are other galaxies in the area that Marth could have seen, but none have positions suggesting digit errors in Marth's position. ===== NGC 7507 might also be IC 1475 (which see). But so might NGC 7513. ===== NGC 7513 might also be IC 1475 (which see). But so might NGC 7507. ===== NGC 7515. See NGC 7555. ===== NGC 7519 is UGC 12424, not UGC 12416. Marth's position and description fit UGC 12424 very well. While Bigourdan's correction, quoted by Dreyer in the IC2 Notes, suggests that NGC 7519 is UGC 12416 rather than UGC 12424, it nevertheless leaves us with a large declination offset (2 arcmin) and a description that does not fit the galaxy. Checking Bigourdan's observations, we find that the declination he measured is also correct for UGC 12416, so it is clear that he simply observed a different galaxy than did Marth. To preserve Marth's priority here, we have given the NGC number to UGC 12424. ===== NGC 7520 may be IC 5290. Tempel had trouble with the position, and gives it as "23 06 :: -24 35 :" (equinox 1855) in his paper. He does note that the nebula was "repeatedly seen" and I5290 is the only object near his position -- aside from stars -- that he could have dug out. Of course, since there are many stars (e.g. NGC 4322) in his lists of "nebulae", this object too could well be another. Dreyer adds a note in the second IC that Howe could not find the object on two nights. A further curiosity is the added note in the NGC description reading "between 2 stars." This is not in Tempel's paper, so was apparently added by him later in a note to Dreyer. (Or, horror, Dreyer got the object confused with another ...) ===== NGC 7522. There is no trace of a nebula matching Muller's description (magnitude = 16.0, diameter = 0.3 arcmin, irregularly round, suddenly brighter in the middle? [the query is Muller's], star 10 in position angle 75 deg, distance 3.2 arcmin) in his published position. Unfortunately, no sketch of the field survives among the unpublished Leander McCormick papers. ESO has suggested that the number might apply to an extremely faint galaxy near the NGC position, but it is almost certainly too faint to have been seen even in the Leander McCormick 26-inch refractor -- it is barely visible on the blue POSS1 print. Another possibility for Muller's object is the faint star about 2 minutes of time following the published position. It has the correct distance and position angle from a brighter star to the east-northeast, is about of the right magnitude, and is offset from the published position by about the same amount and in the same direction as many other of the nebulae in the Leander McCormick lists. I stress, however, that this is just another possibility for the identity of N7522. It could well be wrong, and the nebula truly lost. ===== NGC 7526. WH simply calls this "eF, vS", then adds, "240 left doubtful." Whatever it was that caused him concern has not come down to us as GC and NGC not only left off the final remark, but gave us no notes, either. In any case, the object is a short line of three stars; there is a fourth nearby to the northwest. WH's position is 8 seconds preceding and 1.5 arcmin north, but that is well within his usual errors. ===== NGC 7528 is one of the fainter of the NGC nebulae, having been found by A. A. Common using his 36-inch glass-mirrored reflector. Though he calls it simply "F, S", it is around V = 15.5 - 16. Similar nebulae were usually called "eF, eS" by other observers. Fortunately, there are no other nebulae anywhere as bright in the area, so we can be fairly sure of the identity. Common's approximate position -- which he determined simply by reading his setting circles -- is about 20 seconds of time preceding the galaxy. ===== NGC 7536. See NGC 7555. ===== NGC 7540 is not NGC 7551, which see. ===== NGC 7541 may also be NGC 7581, which see. Also see NGC 7560. ===== NGC 7547. See NGC 7571. ===== NGC 7549. See NGC 7571. ===== NGC 7550. See NGC 7571. ===== NGC 7551 is a faint galaxy with a somewhat brighter star superposed just to the southwest. The pair of objects is about 2/3 of an arcmin north of Marth's position. Some lists have N7551 equal to N7540, but Marth found that the same night that he picked up N7551. The two objects cannot, therefore, be identical. ===== NGC 7552 = IC 5294, which see. ===== NGC 7555 is probably one of the following: NGC 7515, NGC 7536, NGC 7559, NGC 7563, or NGC 7570. If I were betting, I'd narrow it down to N7536, N7559, or N7563. Here is JH's full description: "F, R, bM; place very loose; two or three more nebulae suspected in the neighbourhood." There is a fairly rich, scattered group about a degree north of JH's "very loose" position. Just about any of the brighter of the galaxies in it could be the one he saw, with the some of others being his "suspected" nebulae. Just to be sure, I checked for other objects found in the same sweep; there are only two, N14 and N7810. JH's positions for both are well within an arcmin of the modern positions, so there is no reason to suspect a systematic offset in the position of N7555. There certainly is, however, an accidental error. ===== NGC 7559. See NGC 7555. ===== NGC 7560 and NGC 7561 are a double star and a single star, respectively. Both were found by Herman Schultz in the early 1860's about 1.5 minutes of time east of NGC 7541. Though he saw N7560 three times, and N7561 on the later two of those nights, none of the nights was very good. The first two nights he notes as turbulent with "gales" and aurorae, the third as being interrupted by clouds. His positions are good, though, and point to within a few arcsec of the objects. So it was that Reinmuth had no trouble identifying the stars; his identifications were picked up by Carlson, and by RNGC. ===== NGC 7561 is a star. See NGC 7560. ===== NGC 7562 may also be NGC 7575, which see -- but probably is not. ===== NGC 7563. See NGC 7555. ===== NGC 7564 is a star identified exactly by Bigourdan's micrometric measurements. CGCG 406-036, a few arcmin southwest chosen by Wolfgang, RNGC, and LEDA, is clearly not Bigourdan's object. ===== NGC 7565 is lost, probably for good. It is one of the fourteen new nebulae found by Brother Ferrari and announced by Father Secchi in AN 1571. See NGC 7667 for more on these nebulae. ===== NGC 7568 may also be NGC 7574, which see. ===== NGC 7569 has a two-degree error in its published Declination: instead of +10 16 45, it should be +08 16 45. Swift's position then falls very close to UGC 12472. He also noted "3 F sts sf form a small right angle triangle." The stars are there. So, however, is another star of about the same brightness, closer to the galaxy. Perhaps the triangle is so eye-catching that Swift hardly noticed the closer star. ===== NGC 7570. See NGC 7555. ===== NGC 7571 may be NGC 7597. Or maybe not. Here is Schultz's entire note on the object (I've expanded his abbreviations). "A poor stellar group of pretty bright stars follows the above nebulae [N7547, N7549, and N7550] about 1 1/2 minutes; and the whole region following this stellar group seems nebulous: [Schultz italics] a group of small nebulae or a considerably extended nebulosity with several knots? [end italics] As yet the sky was not sufficiently dark, and the nebulosity very faint and indistinct, no decision could be arrived at. This nebulosity independently remarked in the autumns 1867 and 1869, as on the second occasion the elder notice was forgotten. Description and position do not at all agree with III. 181 [N7550]!" There is no such group of bright star 1.5 minutes following the N7550 galaxy group. The stellar group is instead 1.5 minutes of time following NGC 7578 (coincidentally, RNGC makes N7571=N7578; it probably isn't unless Schultz got his direction wrong and the nebulosity is PRECEDING the stellar group). But Schultz would have had to misidentify N7578 as N7547 or N7550. This, I admit, is a bit of a stretch. But the group of stars is 3.3 minutes following the N7550 group, as well as nearly 20 arcmin to the south. Schultz would have been aware of that considerable difference. Scattered around through the bright stars are several galaxies, four of which (N7588, N7597, N7598, and N7602) Marth ran across about the same time using Lasalle's great telescope in Malta. These are bright enough that Schultz could have pulled them out with his 9.6-inch. So, I've tentatively put NGC 7571 on the brightest of Marth's galaxies, N7597. The other possibility is that of RNGC's: N7571 is the same as N7578. N7578 is double and is the brightest in a tight group of galaxies (Hickson 94). This would be in accord with Schultz's description of his object as possibly being a group of nebulae. However, it also requires Schultz to make a mistake in his directions. Also, N7578 is considerably fainter than N7550 or N7597 -- but either of these hypotheses requires that Schultz saw N7578. I'm leaning slightly toward the N7597 hypothesis, but the other could well be the correct one. ===== NGC 7574 may be identical with NGC 7568. This would require errors of 30 seconds of time in RA and 30 arcmin in Dec in d'A's nominal position. He only observed the object once, so these are possible. With no other reasonable candidates that I can see, I've adopted the identity, though with a question mark. ===== NGC 7575 is probably CGCG 406-044, just one degree south of Marth's otherwise not-too-badly-determined position. The description matches, and the considerably fainter galaxy just to the south would probably have escaped Marth's attention. The identification as a star (by Reinmuth, copied by Carlson and RNGC) seems less likely given that a "Faint, small, very little extended" nebula would be well-seen in a 48-inch telescope. Still, Marth has probably picked up a few other stars, so this remains a possibility, however -- ahem -- faint. Another, even less likely possibility, is that N7575 is NGC 7562 with a 1.3 minute error in RA. The one-degree digit error strikes me as a better bet. ===== NGC 7577. I was skeptical about Wolfgang's identification of this (the Lyon folks fingered the same faint galaxy), even with the star close northeast. So, I reduced Bigourdan's observation -- his position falls exactly and cleanly between star and galaxy. He apparently really did see the pair, so it is in the big table. ===== NGC 7578. The modern catalogues make a small mess of this NGC number, so here are the facts in RA order (the positions are from HKA): RA (1950.0) Dec Hickson VV UGC RC2/3 23 14 42.50 +18 25 39.5 94b=N7578A 181b 12477=N7578a N7578A 23 14 44.00 +18 26 04.4 94a=N7578B 181a 12478=N7578b N7578B Hickson and VV did things logically (by magnitude), choosing the brightest component as "a". UGC followed its internal scheme, also logical, of choosing component letters by RA. RC2/3 followed UGC. Looking at the NGC, we see that N7578 was only observed by William and John Herschel. Though WH noted "4 or 5 small stars with nebulosity," JH saw only one object here which he succinctly described with a single letter "F." Neither of their positions is good enough to pin down one or the other of the galaxies as the real N7578, but since Hickson 94a is brighter by over 0.6 mag, I think that we can choose it as N7578 without bending the history too much. So, I have ignored the NGC identifications in Hickson, UGC, and RC2/3; and have made the brighter north-following object (UGC 12478) = NGC 7578. This group, buy the way, may also be NGC 7571, which see. ===== NGC 7580. See NGC 7644. ===== NGC 7581 may be NGC 7541. Dreyer credits the object to Holden, but it is not in either of the lists in the Washburn Observatory Publications that Dreyer credits in the NGC. Nor does Dreyer give a reference in the GC Supplement where the object first appears. If Holden published a note about the object, it must have been in the time between the GC's appearance in 1864 and the publication of the Supplement in 1878. Perhaps someone could check the appropriate journals of the time (AN, MN, The Observatory, AJ, and so forth). In any event, the identity with NGC 7541 was first suggested by Reinmuth. From Die Nebel Herschel, it was picked up by Carlson, then RC1, and RNGC. The identity is reasonable: aside from being called "very faint," the remainder of the GC/NGC description "much extended, star 12-13 close following" is accurate. However, the position is 3 minutes of time off in RA, and 8 arcmin in Dec. These don't seem to suggest simple digit errors, though they could be. I've put a question mark on the identification because of the position mismatch and the lack of a reference. ===== NGC 7582. See IC 5308 = NGC 7599. ===== NGC 7583 = NGC 7605. See NGC 7604. ===== NGC 7586. Marth's position, verified on at least a second night, and copied correctly into the NGC, falls near a galaxy meeting his description "eF, vS, alm stellar." For some reason, CGCG ignores this object and incorrectly puts the NGC number on a considerably fainter galaxy 17 seconds preceding and a full 20 arcmin to the south. At least Hubble got the right object in his thesis. ===== NGC 7588. See NGC 7571. ===== NGC 7590. See IC 5308 = NGC 7599. ===== NGC 7593. Found by Albert Marth, the RA he listed is off by 30 seconds of time. See NGC 1474 about other nebulae found by Marth on this night. ===== NGC 7594 = IC 1478. The confusion arose because Ainslie Common's position is none too good. His description, however, pinpoints the galaxy: "Faint, round, following 3 stars in a line [oriented at] 90 deg pointing to another fainter nebula south." The "fainter nebula south" is IC 5306 (which see; it was rediscovered by Kobold). I suspect that Dreyer did not include this in the NGC because of the lack of a position. That did not prevent him from including other poorly observed nebulae, however, so his decision remains a bit of a puzzle. ===== NGC 7596 = IC 1477. Here is another case where the Leander McCormick RA is well off the real RA. In this case, we have Leavenworth's sketch showing the galaxy and four stars around it in a distinctive pattern to positively identify the galaxy. His description also fits well, though the position angle of the major axis is closer to 25 degrees than to zero. Javelle picked up the galaxy just a few years after Leavenworth discovered it. The IC position, correctly copied from Javelle's list and refered as usual to a BD star, is good. Presumeably his micrometric offsets and a modern position for the star would yield an even better position, but I've not reduced them. The identity is obvious, and we have better modern positions in any case. ===== NGC 7597 may be NGC 7571, which see. ===== NGC 7598. See NGC 7571. ===== NGC 7599 = IC 5308, which see. ===== NGC 7602. See NGC 7571. ===== NGC 7604 and NGC 7605 = NGC 7583 were found by Marth late in 1864. There is nothing in his places that he could have seen with Laselle's 48-inch telescope, but just one minute of time preceding is a pair matching his descriptions and relative positions. It happens that he had found the brighter of the pair earlier in the same year. Thus, that object has two entries in his list, and two NGC numbers. Unfortunately, CGCG put the number 7583 on the fainter of the galaxies, though it does in fact belong to the brighter. ===== NGC 7605 = NGC 7583. See NGC 7604. ===== NGC 7607 is a double star. This is one of Tempel's nebulae with a very good ring micrometer measurement. That pins down the star accurately, as does Tempel's note of a 16th magnitude star half an arcminute to the northeast. ===== NGC 7610 and NGC 7616 are two of the objects found by Ainslee Common with his 36-inch reflector. His positions coincide with nothing on the sky, but close to the position for NGC 7610 is a relatively large Scd galaxy that might well have been described as "diffuse" by him. There is nothing at all near the position for NGC 7616, and I suspect that Common's two observations refer to the same object. This galaxy has been micrometrically measured by Kobold. His second measurement, reported under the number NGC 7610, was corrected on his errata page. The corrected measurement is obviously a repeat measure of the same object as his first measure, listed under NGC 7616. He therefore added a note to that effect, saying that the measured object was "most likely" to be NGC 7616. I think this is because Common's description is "pF, dif" for N7616, but "F, S, dif" for N7610. Bigourdan has no observations for either object, though he reports having seen NGC 7610 at its NGC position. Carl Wirtz also provides only a description for it, and includes the object under the number "NGC 7616?" in his collection of the Strassberg micrometric positions. The galaxy was subsequently ignored until its appearance in CGCG, MCG, UGC, and the 10th KUG list. Steve Gottlieb reports a visual sighting of it in 1992, but could find nothing near the position of NGC 7616. He pointed out, though, a very faint galaxy a few seconds of time east of the NGC position; I doubt that Common could have seen this, even with a 36-inch. If it were N7616, then Common's descriptions would be backwards: "F" for the much brighter galaxy, and "pF" for the much fainter. ===== NGC 7613 and NGC 7614 are two of Brother Ferrari's nebulae announced by Father Secchi in AN 1571. N7614 is "Very near [N7613] south-preceding" according to the note that Secchi gives, but there is no obvious double nebula anywhere near the nominal position. There are many galaxies in this area, however. Perhaps one of them, plus a faint star or asterism, will turn out to be the objects the good brothers saw. See NGC 7667 for more about these observations. ===== NGC 7614. See NGC 7613. ===== NGC 7616. See NGC 7610. ===== NGC 7622. Curious! My early list of RNGC errata is wrong, but I've not yet found out why (probably a typo). I correctly identified the galaxy for SGC, however, and ESO also has the right object. RC3 is therefore correct. But what led me to think it nonexistent? Curious, indeed! ===== NGC 7627 is probably NGC 7641. At least that is the opinion of Lewis Swift and Herbert Howe as expressed in Howe's note in MNRAS 61, 29, 1900. Howe wrote to Swift after being unable to find the object on two nights. There is indeed nothing in Swift's place. However, in spite of Swift's imprimatur, I'm a unsure about this identification. While there are indeed two stars north of the galaxy, Swift's full note in his 6th list reads "vF, S, vE; coarse D * nr n; the D * is bet 2 sts." I would not call the two stars even a coarse double -- they are separated by nearly an arcminute and are quite faint. Furthermore, I see no trace of the two stars flanking the coarse double. Swift's description of the galaxy is accurate, but the lack of the stars is bothersome. A search of the area turned up nothing else that might be Swift's object, however. The possibility of a large digit error remains to be checked. In the meantime, I've marked the identification with colons. ===== NGC 7630. See NGC 7638. ===== NGC 7632 = IC 5313, which see. ===== NGC 7638 = IC 1483 and NGC 7639 = IC 1485 are two nebulae discovered by Ainslie Common with his 36-inch reflector. They are mentioned only in his discriptive note for NGC 7630, presumeably found the same night: "There are 2 similar nebulae within 30' sf No. 32 [N7630]." Even though the position of N7630 is coarsely given (23 15, +10 47 for 1880), its identity is fortunately clear. We are also fortunate that the only two galaxies bright enough for Common to have easily seen "within 30' sf" are the only two candidates there are in that part of the sky. The identities are therefore very secure, even if the NGC positions (worked out by Dreyer for lack of anything better, and marked with plus-minus signs) are far off. The poor positions led Javelle to think these two nebulae "novae" when he went over the field in the early 1890's. So, they (and a third nearby, IC 1484) received IC numbers as well. ===== NGC 7639 = IC 1485. See NGC 7638. ===== NGC 7641 may also be NGC 7627, which see. ===== NGC 7643. See NGC 7644. ===== NGC 7644. There is nothing at Swift's nominal position. The faint galaxy two arcmin following is too faint and too small to match Swift's description. There are two reasonable candidates for Swift's object: NGC 7643 (found by Stephan) and NGC 7651, found by Swift himself just four weeks before N7644 (on 1 Sept 1886). N7643 is exactly two degrees south of Swift's nominal position, and 22 seconds of time preceding. The description pretty well matches the galaxy. N7651 has the same declination, and is 1 minute 15 seconds of time east of N7644's position. This is a fainter object -- Swift called it "extremely faint" rather than the "very faint" he used for N7644. In neither description does he refer to nearby stars, though N7651 is noted as being "in vacancy." This almost certainly rules out a third candidate, N7580 (5 min 32 sec west, but only 1.5 arcmin north) around which Swift noted four stars when he found it four nights earlier (on 25 Sept 1886). The object that RNGC and Wolfgang choose as N7644 is an even fainter object of lower surface brightness just over an arcmin east-northeast of N7651. Had Swift seen this, he certainly would have noted the two as a close pair -- in his 32 arcmin field, they would appear to be almost on top of one another. In the end, I suspect that N7643 is the most likely candidate, though N7651 has the advantage of only an error in RA. However, choosing either one is speculation, so I've sprinkled question marks liberally among the several galaxies in the table. ===== NGC 7646, which may be = IC 5318, is another of the Leander-McCormick nebulae found by Muller, with its discovery announced before a decent position was available. Muller's description (magnitude = 14.5, diameter = 0.2 x 0.1, extended 260 deg) would fit IC 5318 if he saw only the bar of the galaxy. He also has a "*9, PA 10 deg, distance 3.6 arcmin." The star is actually 3.8 arcmin away at PA = 346 deg. Did Muller somehow get his PA into the wrong quadrant? (There is no sketch to help us in this case). The main thing that makes me question the identification is the star of magnitude 9 or 10 superposed on the galaxy. Muller surely would have mentioned the star had he noticed it -- since the nature of the nebulae was still in debate in the late 1880's, nearby stars were often taken as possibly physically associated with the nebulae. IC 5318 was found by Herbert Howe, using Chamberlain Observatory's 16-inch refractor. He measured the position of the galaxy, and noted the superposed star but, because of Muller's poor position, did not make a connection with the NGC number. Given the problems with Muller's position and description, we should perhaps simply note the possibility of the identity, and let it go at that. ===== NGC 7648 = IC 1486, which see. Also see NGC 7667. ===== NGC 7649 = IC 1487, which see. ===== NGC 7651. See NGC 7644. ===== NGC 7653 is not IC 1488, which see. ===== NGC 7654 = M 52. The NGC position (from JH) is for SAO 20606, west of the cluster itself. The cluster has a tight core of perhaps a dozen stars, but this is not at the geometrical center of the cluster. Hence, I've listed two positions in the table. Take whichever one seems appropriate to you. ===== NGC 7663 is one of Brother Ferrari's nebulae announced by Father Secchi. It, unlike eight other nebulae found by Ferrari, has two candidate galaxies in the area of the nominal position. One, MCG -01-59-023 is slightly brighter than the other, MCG -01-59-022. The former galaxy also has the advantage of being closer to the nominal RA (the nominal position is 23 24 06, -05 01.7), but is just as far off in declination. I've put both in the table of positions -- with question marks, of course. ===== NGC 7666 is lost. It is one of the fourteen nebulae announced by Father Secchi in AN 1571. See NGC 7667 for more on these nebulae. ===== NGC 7667, NGC 7668, NGC 7669, and NGC 7670. Father Angelo Secchi was a Jesuit priest who worked at College Romain in the mid-1800's. He is remembered today primarily as a pioneer in spectral classification of stars, and for his studies of the sun: he was among the first to photograph the corona during an eclipse, and also was the first to attempt to deduce the interior structure of the sun. It's fair to say that he was -- pun fully intended -- a father of stellar astrophysics. In 1866, he published in AN 1571 a short list of fourteen new nebulae that one of his fellow Jesuits, Brother Ferrari, discovered during a (fruitless) search for Biela's Comet from 11 November 1865 to 18 January 1866. Father Secchi has this to say about the 9.5-inch Merz equatorial at the College Romain, "From this study, we have convinced ourselves that the refractor at our observatory is at least as keen and powerful as the Herschels' telescopes ..." (translated by me from his French original). Also, he says that they "fitted [to the telescope] a large eyepiece which gives a 27 arcmin field." (My thanks to Wolfgang Steinicke for digging out the size of the telescope.) Back to the fourteen new nebulae. I searched near the nominal positions on the POSS1 prints for all of these, and was unable to find any trace of eight of them (NGC 7565, N7613, N7614, N7666, N7667, N7668, N7669, and N7670). There are good candidates for three others (N7683, the only one of the objects whose position was determined by actual comparison to a star, N7738, and N50), and poor candidates for the remaining three (N7663, N7739, and N116). Secchi (or Ferrari) also "corrects" WH's positions for two nebulae, N157 and N7648. His positions for those are indeed better than Herschel's -- but they don't help us find the other missing objects in his list. If we take mean offsets from modern positions for the "good" candidates -- excepting N7683 for which the position comes from a different method -- and the two corrected WH galaxies, we find systematic offsets of -5 seconds of time, and -1 arcmin 10 arcsec in Dec. The standard deviations on these numbers (+- 18 seconds and +- 26 arcsec) suggest that the RA offset is not significant and that the Declination offset is barely significant. But even that does not help us find the missing objects. Reading more of Father Secchi's note, I learned why the positions are so bad. "The position is determined from the setting circles of the equatorial, corrected for instrumental errors, simply by placing the nebula in the center of the field." Secchi, however, also says that he verified each of the nebulae after Brother Ferrari found them. He must have done this on the same nights as their discovery since he never would have recovered them otherwise. Since Secchi gives no equinox in his note, I, like Dreyer before me, have assumed that his positions refer to the equinox at the date of observation, i.e. 1866.0 give or take a few weeks. I adopted 1866.0. Specifically for NGC 7667 and its cohorts: there is nothing at all near the single nominal position that Secchi gives for them, and only one or two of the galaxies within a degree of that position are bright enough to have been seen with a 9.5-inch telescope. However, Steve Gottlieb has suggested that some of the knots in the arms of UGC 12578 might be N7668, N7669, and N7670 which Secchi says "surround" N7667. These are much too faint for a 9.5-inch telescope, but the galaxy itself is quite bright enough to be one of Secchi's objects, in spite of having a pretty low surface brightness. However, it is 3 minutes off in RA and nearly five arcmin in Dec from the nominal position, so it would be a stretch to point to this object. There are also three other objects within 13.5 arcmin of it that might be Secchi and Ferrari's other three nebulae: UGC 12589, and the double stars at 23 21 54.6, -00 12 35 and 23 22 12.5, -00 21 42 (1950 positions). All are northeast of U12578, though, and Secchi's description clearly translates as "Very faint: the other three surround the 9th [in the list = N7667] in the field." So, U12589 and the double stars are pure guesswork, and I don't think that I'd want to stake my life on them -- or even on U12578 being N7667. ===== NGC 7668. See NGC 7667. ===== NGC 7669. See NGC 7667. ===== NGC 7670. See NGC 7667. ===== NGC 7681. CGCG, RNGC, and UGC all chose the wrong galaxy in spite of the very good NGC position (from two determinations by John Herschel). This is even more curious as the correct galaxy is a full magnitude brighter and twice as large as the one they all chose. Furthermore, the description in the NGC mentions the double star following the nebula: there is none following the wrong galaxy, but there is a clear double just north-following the correct object. The identification is unambiguous. ===== NGC 7689. The RC3 position (from ESO) is correct (barring an error in ESO, of course), while RC2 gives the wrong RA. Oddly, there is nothing in the GSC at either position, though ESO-LV repeats the ESO position and gives plausible data for the galaxy there. ===== NGC 7697 = IC 5333. I'm pretty sure that this is = ESO 110-G012. This means that the RA error (3 minutes of time, not one minute as I earlier stated), and the Dec error (9.4 arcmin, close enough to 10 arcmin), are both digit errors. In addition, ESO 110-G012 is nearly a magnitude brighter than 110-G014 (14.33 vs. 15.18 in ESO-LV); it is also considerably larger. All this leads to the conclusion that RC3 is wrong: PGC 71800 = N7697 = I5333, type = .S..3P/, S(T) = S, T = 2.5 +- 0.7. Also PGC 71812 is not = N7697, type = .SBT6.., and T = 6.3 +- 0.6. ===== NGC 7699, NGC 7700, and NGC 7701. The brightest of this triplet was found by WH and given the number III 188 in his first catalogue. This galaxy was also observed by d'Arrest who marked the identification with H III 188 questionable (until I can find time to translate his Latin descriptions, I won't know why he queried the ID; I suspect Herschel's position is not too good). His four observations provide the good NGC position for NGC 7701. The NGC description is also accurate -- there is an 11th magnitude star south-preceding. In November of 1864, after d'Arrest had made his observations, but before he published them, Marth found the other two galaxies in the group with Laselle's 48-inch reflector during one of their stays at Malta. Though neither was verified, the positions and descriptions are good enough to establish the identifications. There the matter rested until I included the two largest of the galaxies in the ESGC. Unfortunately, I reversed the identifications in the prepublication version of ESGC, calling NGC 7700 "NGC 7701" and vice versa. Steve Gottlieb caught the mistake, but unfortunately not until after publication of RC3. In any event, this is one case in which the NGC positions and descriptions point to exactly the right galaxies. My apologies for muddying the waters! ===== NGC 7700. See NGC 7699. ===== NGC 7701. See NGC 7699. ===== NGC 7708. This is probably just a random group of stars. The NGC position, from JH, is for SAO 10791, the 8th magnitude star mentioned in the NGC description. The other fainter stars seem to be scattered more to the north, and the extent of the "cluster" is indefinite on the POSS1. Perhaps it would appear better at the eyepiece. ===== NGC 7720. WH's RA is 40 seconds too large. See NGC 6882 = NGC 6885 for more on the observations he made on 10 Sept 1784. Also see NGC 7726. ===== NGC 7726. When I measured positions in Abell 2634 for RC2, I assigned the number N7726 to the galaxy at 23 36 41.1 +26 50 21 (N7720 is at 23 35 58.7 +26 45 22, N7728 at 23 37 30.0 +26 51 28, and IC 5342 is at 23 36 08.1 +26 44 05). However, I had not then dug out Swift's original description: "eeF; pS; R; e diff; pB * nr f; [N7728] nr nf, but is not little, but very elongated." I really have to stretch to make my first choice fit this description; the "pB *" is hardly "near" (but keep in mind Swift's 32 arcmin field!), though it is north-following, as is N7728 (more following than north). On the other hand, Swift's description of N7728 is wrong: it is indeed little elongated, just as d'Arrest saw it. So, which galaxy did Swift see? I don't see any other object in Abell 2634 that fits his description. For the time being, I'm going to let my original identification stand, but it is certainly questionable. RC3 is almost certainly wrong, and the number N7726 ought to be deleted from PGC 71991 and -- perhaps! -- added to PGC 72024. ===== NGC 7728. See NGC 7726. ===== NGC 7738 and NGC 7739. Father Secchi listed 14 new nebulae in his short discovery note (see NGC 7667 for more about these objects). Of these, I cannot locate eight. Three others -- including N7738 and N7739 -- have candidate galaxies, though I'm still very uncertain about the identifications. The only galaxies that even come close to satisfying Secchi's position for the pair and brief description ("Very faint: the seventh [N7739] is near to the south") are UGC 12757 and CGCG 381-038. The latter is nearly as far east of the former as it is south, so I've put question marks by the identities. ===== NGC 7739. See NGC 7738. ===== NGC 7740. MCG apparently made an error in the RA when precessing the NGC position since the object called N7740 in it precedes the correct object by about a minute of time. The correct object is not in MCG, but is in CGCG -- it is CGCG 476-123. ===== NGC 7741. WH's position is almost +4 arcmin off. See NGC 6882 = NGC 6885 for more on this and his other observations of 10 Sept 1784. ===== NGC 7744 = IC 5348, which see. ===== NGC 7745. MCG missed the NGC identification in spite of the fact that Marth's position is quite good. Though this is in a poor galaxy cluster, it is the brightest member. Since none of the other cluster members is nearly as bright, there are no other objects nearby that Marth could have confused with this one, so the identification is secure. ===== NGC 7748. Only the star (SAO 20818) is here. JH says, "About a * 8m is a very extensive space which I am certain is affected with nebulosity." He saw this on only one night, so the nebulosity may well have been a transient feature of some sort (thin cloud? aurora?). The magnitude of the star becomes "7" in the NGC; GC follows JH of course, in making it "8": another curiousity with this object. ===== NGC 7756. The fourth Earl of Rosse puts this object five arcmin southwest of N7757. The original description reads in full "Another neb about 5' sp." Not much to go on! There is a star in the area that was taken by MCG and RC1 as N7756, and I've put a colon on it as it seems the most likely object. However, LdR also has measures of two other stars just north of N7757 in his observation of it. Both of them are about the same magnitude as the star to the southwest. This makes me wonder why LdR didn't see them as nebulae as well. It also lead me to poke around the area a bit. There is a close double star -- quite faint, though -- closer to N7757, and a somewhat brighter and much wider double further south. Neither seems a likely candidate to me, but there isn't much else around that LdR could have seen with the Leviathan. ===== NGC 7757. See NGC 7756. ===== NGC 7761 = IC 5361. This is one of two galaxies in this area found by Ormond Stone in 1886 at Leander-McCormick. As you know by now, I am not generally thrilled with the positions that Stone has left us in the AJ articles announcing the discovery of these things. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify most of the objects. In this case, we need to go back to Stone's notes since he left us no sketch of the field. In the notes to NGC 7776 -- which he DID sketch -- we find the note "near [N7761]". We can definitely show that N7776 is the same object as IC 1514, so Stone's rough positions yeild an offset of about 3 minutes of time in RA and an identical declination (though the declination for N7776 is marked with a plus-minus sign) to N7761. When we apply those offsets to N7776 = I1514 -- noting that the nominal Dec for N7761 is not marked with any uncertainty symbol -- we find IC 5361 at just about where we'd expect it to be if it is indeed N7761. Since the description pretty well fits, I'm confident of the identification. The note in the second IC is a bit misleading because Howe thought he searched in vain for N7761 and N7776. He did, in fact, come across N7761, but took it to be new. Thus it, like N7776, ended up with an IC number, too. ===== NGC 7765 is in a group with NGC 7766, N7767, and N7768. See the latter two for notes on the group. ===== NGC 7766 is in a group with NGC 7765, N7767, and N7768. See the latter two for notes on the group. ===== NGC 7767. Though both Reinmuth and CGCG suggested that this is identical to IC 1511 (which see), it is a different object. Bigourdan has measurements of both objects which show that I1511 is a star, while this is a galaxy with a star superposed about 15 arcsec southwest of the nucleus (Bigourdan actually measured this star rather than the galaxy itself). Lord Rosse's diagram is useful in sorting out the identities of the other galaxies in the field, NGC 7765, N7766, and N7768. ===== NGC 7768 is the brightest of a group of galaxies found by Lord Rosse. His diagram makes clear the identities of the objects he saw. Others in the group are N7765, N7766, and N7767 (which see). Bigourdan's two "novae" here (IC 1511 and I1512, which see) are stars. ===== NGC 7774. See NGC 153. ===== NGC 7776 = IC 1514 is another of Ormond Stone's discoveries at Leander- McCormick. Though his nominal position is quite poor (1.5 minutes of time off in RA and nearly 12 arcmin in Dec), he has left us a sketch showing the nebula and two nearby stars. The brighter of the stars is just outside of the nominal field diameter, but is nevertheless found on the sky where Stone placed it on the sketch. This clearly identifies his nebula as the same one that Johann Palisa found and measured accurately seven years later in September of 1893. Even though Palisa did not have a precise position for his comparison star, the position he published is quite accurate. So, there is no doubt about the identity of the galaxy he measured. Clinching the identity, Palisa noted an eccentric nucleus, and Stone's sketch shows that same offset nucleus. See NGC 7761 = IC 5361 for another Stone discovery that depends on this galaxy for its identification. ===== NGC 7772 is an astersim of 7 stars, the southern-most brighter than the others. Still, it is a striking object, well isolated, and would probably stand out quite well at the eyepiece. ===== NGC 7791 is a double star. Even JH had doubts about its nebular character, adding to his notes "Query if not a star." His position is good. ===== NGC 7795. This is a sparce group of stars generally to the east of the 7th magnitude star (SAO 35922) that JH called "the chief of a vL coarse scattered but poor cluster which fills the field." It doesn't stand out well on POSS1, but may look better at the eyepiece where the background of faint stars would not be seen. ===== NGC 7799 is a star about 20 arcsec northeast of a somewhat brighter star. D'A mentions both objects in his description, and has them in the correct relative orientation as well as at the correct distance. Furthermore, his position is within 20 arcsec of the true position. Other catalogues have pointed to UGC 12882 as NGC 7799, but that is a very faint object, and the even fainter star southwest is twice as far from the object as d'A has measured it. I don't think it likely that d'A could have seen either object with his 11-inch refractor. ===== NGC 7801. This is a possible cluster at JH's position. He says of it only "A double star in a tolerable cluster in which is one star 9 m." To my eye on a DSS image, this is a group of 20-30 stars covering an area about 15 arcmin by 11 arcmin. Brian Skiff sees it as an "asterism, center defined as position of a wide magnitude 12 pair." Whatever the true nature of the object, the 9th magnitude star is a couple of arcmin northwest of the double in the center of the group. ===== NGC 7804 is a double star. Dreyer, in a note in NGC itself, says that "von Engelhardt in 4 obs could only see a D* without nebulosity." Once Burnham turned the 36-inch at Lick on the object, the question was settled for Dreyer. His IC1 note is quite firm: "To be struck out, only a F double star without nebulosity (Burnham)." This is indeed what we see today. The discoverer of this object, Schweizer, is not otherwise known to me. Perhaps someone can do some biographical digging. He was probably an observer at Moscow as the observation comes originally, according to the NGC note, from the "Obs. de Moscou," Vol II, book 2, pp 115 and 119. ===== NGC 7807. The ESO RA for 1950 has the seconds of time inverted -- instead of "23 57 05" read "23 57 50". This error was propogated into SGC (blush), NGC 2000.0, and DSFG by cataloguers who assumed ESO was correct (as it usually is!). Otherwise, all is well with this object. ===== NGC 7810. See NGC 7555. ===== NGC 7813 is probably identical with IC 5384, though the descriptions do not match, and Muller's position is a typically poor one from the second Leander McCormick list in AJ. The IC number comes from Howe who found the galaxy while looking for NGC 7813. The position angles for the galaxy (Muller, 80 deg; Howe, 160 deg) and surrounding stars (Muller, "*8.5 f 38s" and "*9 np 40s"; Howe "*8.5 p 49s" and "two sts 9 nnp") don't match, but the declinations are the same as are the general descriptions "eF, vS, E". I do see a somewhat fainter star (about 10th magnitude) roughly 25 seconds following the galaxy -- is this possibly Muller's "* 8.5"? Unfortunately, he has left us no sketch. The IC identification, at least, is secure. ===== NGC 7814. See IC 5378. ===== NGC 7815 is a single star, exactly at the position measured for it by Schultz. It is his "Nova XII" in his monograph of about 500 micrometrically measured nebulae. He comments, "Several fine stars seen in the neby? The object in the autumn of 1866 quite distinctly seen as a nebula with a stellar core; in the autumn of 1869, hardly visible!" He lists only two night's observations for the object, 2 and 3 October 1866. Neither was good; the 2nd was "Extremely variable; soon clouding" and the 3rd was "Very damp; object-glass covered with moisture." Given those conditions, it doesn't surprise me that he thought the star nebulous. In fact, I am a bit surprised that he does not have more than just an even dozen "Novae". Bigourdan, by the way, has this as two pretty-widely separated stars; his position, though, falls on Schultz's star. ===== NGC 7822. I wonder about JH's declination for this. He has only one observation of it, and places it quite definitely 1.5 degrees north of the center of a huge HII region that would match his description pretty well. Here is what he has to say about it: The central part of what I am positive is an enormously large, but extremely faint nebulosity of a round figure, though I cannot trace its limits. The night exquisite. I swept often across it to be sure, but always recurred to the same place. No doubt but can never be seen but in the best state of air and sky. Diameter 10 arcmin +-. Dreyer attached two notes to the object, one in NGC itself: "Not seen at Birr Castle in two observations. It is, however, far north of the Zenith, and the speculum may have tilted." In the 2nd IC, he says briefly, "40' diameter, many stars involved (Roberts, MN lxviii, 301)." Roberts's description, from three 90-minute plates taken in 1901 and 1902, is clearly that of the large nebula south of JH's position. Roberts notes three pretty bright stars involved (BD +66 1675, 1676, and 1679) which make it quite clear that he thought N7822 to be the HII region. I'm puzzled, though, that neither he nor Dreyer mentioned the differing declinations. I also find JH's diameter estimate to be puzzling. Usually, a 10 arcmin diameter would rate a description of "vL", not "eeL". Also, there is, centered just a few arcmin south of JH's place, a "wing" of the nebula that could possibly be the object that he saw. But it is fainter than the main part of the object. Perhaps the northern part happened to be in the sweep on that "exquisite" night, while the brighter central portion was passed over in another sweep on an average night. Whatever the case, this fainter wing is a possible candidate for N7822, also. However, I'm going to follow Roberts and Dreyer in adopting the HII region as the object that JH probably described, and assume that his declination represents an error of some sort. So, it gets the colon, while the northern wing gets the question mark. I've put the position for the HII region midway between the latter two BD stars in Roberts's note. The HII region, by the way, is Cederblad 214B. It is incorrectly listed as a reflection nebula in at least one catalogue, and various pieces of it have ended up with separate numbers in Lynds's catalogue of bright nebulae. See Dixon's "Master List" for a complete list of the various names. ===== NGC 7825. The NGC positions for this and NGC 7827 are quite good, having come from John Herschel (via the GC) and from d'Arrest. This hasn't kept MCG from mangling the identifications for the galaxies. UGC sorted out N7827, but still got the wrong galaxy for N7825. This led PGC -- and thus RC3 -- to adopt the incorrect identification. CGCG got everything right, but PGC ignored it (and has further made a hash of the CGCG numbers, positions, and magnitudes in the area). In any event, delete the NGC number from PGC 377 in RC3. ===== NGC 7826 is "A triangular group of about a dozen stars" according to JH. What he doesn't say is that the stars are fairly bright, and are scattered over an area of 13 arcmin by 9 arcmin. The apex of the triangle is to the south. I think it's unlikely that this is a real cluster, but haven't checked the proper motions. ===== NGC 7827. See NGC 7825. ===== NGC 7831 = IC 1530. This galaxy was first seen by Lewis Swift on 20 September 1885. Unfortunately, Swift's position is well off the mark, as are his positions for all the galaxies found that night. This one, however, shares a common offset with three of the other galaxies (NGC 19, NGC 21, and NGC 7836). The correct identities are unmistakeable, though, because of Swift's clear descriptions of the star fields surrounding three of the four objects (see NGC 6 for more details). In this case, he notes "bright star south, very faint star very near." The bright star is SAO 053654, and the very faint star is at the southwest end of the galaxy. Swift's poor position led to the galaxy's being rediscovered by Bigourdan. So, it has ended up with the IC number as well. ===== NGC 7832 = IC 5386. This one is another blunder by Swift (originally), but also by Howe and Dreyer who evidently did not check the NGC. Howe's accurate position is only three seconds of time off the NGC position, and Swift's description "pB, pS, vE" should have caught everyone's eyes. But it didn't, so the galaxy now has an IC number as well as an NGC entry. ===== NGC 7836. Curiously, this is the only one of Swift's five discoveries on 20 September 1885 (suffering large offsets from the true positions; see NGC 6 for more details) to be correctly identified by most of the modern catalogues. Yet, Swift's notes about the nearby stars for this galaxy are the most ambiguous of the batch. He merely says "between 2 stars." There is a line of fairly bright stars about 2 arcmin following, but none of the fainter stars preceding the galaxy seem to be a match for the description. Nevertheless, the systematic position offset (+1 min 10 sec and +8 arcmin 8 arcsec) for the nebulae found that night is so closely shared by NGC 7836 (+1 min 14 sec and +8 arcmin 10 arcsec) that its identity is not in doubt. ===== NGC 7839. Bigourdan's position lands directly on the brighter and northeastern of two stars about 4 arcmin southwest of NGC 1 and 2. The fainter star is probably too faint for Bigourdan to have consciously seen with his 30-cm refractor, but it may have added some to the impression of nebulosity around the brighter star. So, I've included it as a part of N7839. =====