NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 557 = IC 1703. NGC 557 comes from Swift's 6th list, sent in pieces to Dreyer before it was published. The final published description reads: "eF, S; B * f 15 seconds and is n of it." This differs a bit from the NGC description: "eF, S, R, * 10 nf," but not in any significant way. The star is actually south-following, but the galaxy is still almost uniquely identified by that star. Swift's RA is nearly 50 seconds of time out, and I wonder if he made a 1 minute error in reading his circles -- a 10 or 12 second error is somewhat closer to his usual accuracy. Bigourdan did not find N557 when he looked for it at the NGC place, but he did run across it a few minutes later. Thinking it was a "nova," he listed it as new and it ended up in the IC2 at its actual position.

===== NGC 557 17.5" (1/1/92): faint, small, round, broad concentration, halo gradually fades into background. Located 4.5' WNW of mag 8.7 SAO 129302 and 20' SE of the core of AGC 194.