NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 3186 is perhaps the northeastern component of CGCG 036-074. There is nothing at Marth's position, and the CGCG galaxy is 1 minute 30 seconds west and 6 arcmin south. There are, however, "sev F sts near" as noted in the NGC -- but not by Marth; more below -- about half a dozen within 5 arcmin of the galaxy. The southwestern component of the CGCG galaxy, by the way, is itself a double galaxy with a superposed star. The nearer, though fainter, candidate galaxy, CGCG 036-085 (20 seconds east, 5 arcmin south) has only three nearby stars that Marth may have seen, so may or may not match the NGC description, depending on one's notion of "several". But -- the NGC note about the nearby faint stars is not in Marth's original description. Dreyer had added it by the time he published the GC Supplement in 1878, but I have not been able to trace the source of the note. It is not in LdR's observations, and Dreyer has no reference in the Supplement. Given that uncertainty, I'm reluctant to discount either galaxy. Nor is there a systematic offset in Marth's positions for the other 25 objects he credits to the same date, 1865.23. NGC 3186 seems to be the only object from that date with a large offset from Marth's position. All in all, not a very satisfactory identity.

===== NGC 3186 17.5" (3/25/00): very faint, extremely small, round, ~15" diameter (probably viewed core only), faint stellar nucleus. Located 1.2' SE of a mag 12.5 star. This galaxy is identified as NGC 3186 in the RNGC and PGC but the identification is uncertain due to a poor position from Albert Marth.