NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 952 = NGC 940. Here is my previous note on this object: Stephan has misidentified his comparison star. My first suspicion was that he switched the comparison stars for this and for NGC 983 (which see; briefly, when 15 Triangulum is used as the comparsion star for N983, Stephan's position exactly matches that for NGC 1002). The position he lists for the N983 star, however -- "786 B.A.C." = 15 Tri -- has no bright star near it (that position is RA = 02h 24m 11.23s, NPD = 58d 59m 27.6s, for 1870). Furthermore, he lists different NPD's for the nebula in the two papers in which he published his third list: in MN, the NPD is given as 59 49 52.1; while in AN, the NPD is 55 49 52.1. There is nothing in either position. The next thing to try is to look for galaxies in the area that are at the offset inferred from Stephan's published positions. These are -4m 25.61s in RA, and +2m 58.0s in Dec. A cursory scan of the relevant areas didn't turn up any reasonable candidates, but I suspect that a careful inspection of the fields northwest of the stars between 5 and 9 in Triangulum would eventually reveal Stephan's object. Until then, however, N952 is unfortunately "Not found." I wrote all of that years ago before I had a copy of E. Esmiol's "Reduction des Observations de Nebuleuses decouvertes par M. Stephan" in hand. That has all the original observations, not just the reduced positions that Stephan published between 1870 and 1885. Esmiol does not include NGC 952 in that list, nor does he discuss its absence. However, there is an entry for NGC 940 with offsets identical to those that I listed in the second paragraph above. The description of the galaxy that he gives is identical to Stephan's. These suggest that the entry for NGC 952 in Stephan's third list was the garbled result of combining this offset with the position of the wrong comparison star. So, we can be confident that NGC 952 = NGC 940.

===== NGC 952 See observing notes for NGC 940.