NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 2043 is probably = NGC 2036. This was found in December of 1884 by Pietro Baracchi with the Great Melbourne Telescpe. He has this to say about it: "Preceding H.1259 [sic; = GC 1259 = NGC 2058] by 79.5s and 4 [arcmin] 30 [arcsec] north is a small elongated group of minute stars involved in very thin nebula ..." (he goes on to describe NGC 2072, which see, another of his discoveries in the area). Given the position of NGC 2058, we should find NGC 2043 at 05 36 07.0, -70 06 48 for 1950. There is nothing exactly there but very faint field stars in the LMC, but 2.5 arcmin south-southwest is a linear asterism 1.7 x 0.5 arcmin, perhaps part of a star cloud (more below), that fits Baracchi's description. After I wrote that, Steve Gottlieb pointed out that Jenni Kay has suggested that NGC 2043 = NGC 2036. This would require a one minute error in the RA of of N2043, but N2036 would match Baracchi's description very well. If, as Steve himself suggested, Baracchi thought that NGC 2036 was a degree north of its actual position, then he would have taken the cluster as a "nova". But JH's italicized note for NGC 2036 stands out quite well in CGH, so I don't see how Baracchi could have missed it. Perhaps he was working from GC only; if so, he would have had no clue that JH had written that the NPD of N2036 might be a degree off. Baracchi would, therefore, have believed that N2043 was indeed a new discovery. NGC 2043 is almost certainly not the very faint cluster that ESO chose, and I doubt that it is the vague collection of stars marked in the Hodge-Wright Atlas, either. Going through that Atlas many years ago, I had marked the small star cloud containing the north-south line of stars (that I mentioned above) as a candidate for the NGC number. I've retained the position for that in the table as well as the linear asterism itself. Finally, there is a curiosity in the Melbourne observations. Baracchi also describes another "new" nebula in the LMC at 05 37 17, -70 08.4 (1950) as "an extremely faint, flat, a little [sic] elongated patch, not shown by any of the previous observers. It precedes H. 1260 [sic; = GC 1260 = NGC 2059] by 14s, and is 1 [arcmin] North of it" in the text, and "Very, very faint, flat, elongated, small, indistinct," in his table of transit times. The difference in RA in the table is 13.9 seconds, consistent with the text. As with NGC 2043, there is nothing exactly at this position, but there is an asterism of 6-8 LMC stars at 05 37 23.5, -70 08 12 (1950). The curiosity is that this object is not listed in the NGC. I discuss it further in the "notngc" files.