NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 495. This is one of three -- the others are NGC 496 and NGC 499 -- that WH found on the night of 13 September 1784, and for which he measured only a single position. In the fair copy of the sweep, he (or CH?) comments in parentheses, "I believe the time should be -,5". If this is so, then the RAs should be 30 seconds of time less than he entered. This, however, would put his position 30 seconds of time west of the galaxies; his published offsets (from beta And) are very close to being correct as they are. So, we can't do much about his suggestion of an uncertain time aside from noting it. At least he flags the RA with double colons in the sweep, though he did not carry that uncertainty over into the published paper. For more on the field around beta And, and the uncertainties in WH's data there, see NGC 499 and NGC 537.

===== NGC 495 24" (10/4/13): fairly faint to moderately bright, fairly small, elongated 3:2 N-S, 30"x20", contains a small bright core. Bracketed by two 14th magnitude stars 1' SSW and 1' NNE. Located in the core of the NGC 507 group (actually the NGC 499 subgroup), with NGC 499 3.3' ESE, NGC 498 3.4' ENE, IC 1684 3.5' S, NGC 496 4.8' NE and NGC 501 6' SE. 13.1" (8/8/86): faint, small, slightly elongated, small bright core. Located midway two mag 14 stars 1.1' SSW and 1.1' NNE. First of three with NGC 496 4.8' NE and NGC 499 3.3' ESE. Located in a rich galaxy group.