NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== 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 343 18" (12/3/05): extremely faint, very small, ~12" diameter. Appears as a very low surface brightness spot with averted vision located 2' W of a 1.2' pair of mag 14 stars. Forms a very close pair with NGC 344. Uncertain historical identification due to a poor position at Leander McCormick observatory. 18" (11/6/04): extremely faint, small, round, very low surface brightness. Situated 2' W of a N-S pair of mag 14 stars. A mag 15 star is 1' N. NGC 344 close SE was not seen. The identification of this pair is uncertain.