NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 1416 has suffered a bit in the literature. It was discovered by Frank Muller at Leander McCormick before he and his fellow observers there were measuring good positions for the nebulae they were finding, so it has an NGC declination that is about 3.5 arcmin off. In addition, the two bright stars just south are described as "* 8.7, nr; * 8.6, n 2'". The actual place of the "* 8.6" is south by 3.5 arcmin, while the "* 8.7" is 1.5 arcmin south. This apparently confused Herbert Howe, too. He wrote in his second MN paper, "Muller gave this nebula as 2' north [sic] of a star of mag. 8.6. It is really south [sic] of the star. There is another star of equal mag. about 5' south of the star mentioned. The position of the nebula is 03 36 41, -23 02.4 [1900.0]." What Howe should have said is "Muller gave this nebula as 2' south of a star of mag. 8.6. It is really north of the star. ..." Still, he did get the galaxy's position right, assuming that this really is the one that Muller saw. Dreyer copied Howe's corrected declination into a note for IC2. Carlson had this to say in 1940 about the object: "NGC correct, W" where the "W" is the source of the note, a Mt. Wilson photograph. She has a footnote on the object that reads "Howe's correction (D III) to NGC not confirmed" ("D III" refers to Dreyer's Notes in IC2). Unfortunately, she is wrong as the NGC declination lands between the two bright stars; Howe is right. So, nobody has got it completely right. This leads me to question Howe's identification, which is the usual one adopted by every catalogue since that includes the galaxy. However, there is no other galaxy in the area that has two bright stars close to it. So, this is most likely Muller's object.

===== NGC 1416 17.5" (11/2/91): faint, small, round, weak concentration. Located almost on line with mag 9.2 SAO 168733 1.5' SSW and mag 9.3 SAO 168734 3.7' S. A mag 13.5 star is 1' SE. Forms a pair with NGC 1415 9' N. Slightly misplotted 5' too far south on U2000.