NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== 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 336 17.5" (10/21/95): very faint, very small, round, low surface brightness. A mag 13 star is 2.2' NW of center. NGC 335 lies 20' NE. Incorrect identification in RNGC.