NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 2869 is identical to NGC 2863. WH found N2863 in March of 1786, and JH observed it again forty years later. JH used his own position and most of his description in GC, but took an "average" of his and his father's brightness estimates: "vF" and "F" became "cF". All this is very close to the position and description we would make today from the Sky Survey. Dreyer copied this into the NGC. In 1885 or 1886, Frank Muller was sweeping across the field. He rediscovered N2863 and also found a fainter companion which became N2868. As usual, his positions from the circles of the Leander McCormick 26-inch refractor were so bad that he thought he had found two "novae" rather than just one. He also suggested that the RA might actually be five minutes larger than that given in the table in the AJ paper. But there is nothing in either of his positions. Herbert Howe sorted all of this out satisfactorily in a Monthly Notices note which Dreyer quoted succinctly in the Notes to the second IC. Howe also got the positions correct.

===== NGC 2869 See observing notes for NGC 2863.