NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 3578. JH found this on 16 Dec 1827 along with at least sixteen of his father's nebulae. Of these seventeen nebulae, only one other (NGC 2848) has a position in JH's table marked uncertain. This one, N3578, has the NPD given only to a full arcmin and is marked with a plus-minus sign. JH's description is also short and discouraging: "A doubtful object, but probably a nebula." Nevertheless, there is what I earlier took to be a close double star within JH's usual statistical error of his position. Looking again at this object on the several DSS images, and on the 2MASS J-band image, I now (November 2014) think that it is a single star. There is another double star seven arcminutes south. Given that my first choice has turned out to be a simple star, I think that the double is perhaps more likely a candidate than I had first considered it. But the question marks are staying on it! It is nevertheless, the sort of double star that JH mistook for a nebula several other times, so I'm going to at least leave it as a possibility for NGC 3578.