NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== 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. ----- Doing a search along a 1-degree wide declination belt at NGC 331's J2000 Dec from 23 hours to 2 hours in RA turned up nothing at all that matched Leavenworth's description better than MCG -01-03-012.

===== NGC 331 17.5" (11/28/97): extremely faint, very small, round, 20" diameter. Requires averted to glimpse and can only view for moments knowing exact location. A nice mag 13/14 double lies 6' N [at 20" separation]. Located 14' W of NGC 259. The identification NGC 331 = MCG -01-03-012 is very tentative.