NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 252, NGC 258, and NGC 260. Lord Rosse and/or his observers 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. Incidentally, only NGC 258 is credited to "LdR" in the NGC; that credit also needs to be added to NGC 260 (which see for a bit more).

===== NGC 252 17.5" (10/17/87): moderately bright, moderately large, large slightly elongated halo, bright core, stellar nucleus. Brightest and first of three with NGC 258 3.2' NE and NGC 260 8.4' NE. An uneven double star is 4' WNW (9.5/12 at 30").