NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 4160. Bigourdan has two accordant observations of this object on 27 May 1886 which place it 12.87 seconds east and 1 arcmin 24.8 arcsec north of "AG Bonn 8386" = SAO 044068. However, there is nothing there. A quick glance at the POSS1 shows another star about 35 seconds following and 40 arcsec north with a faint double star north following. The DSS gives the 1950 position of the double as 12 09 31.0, +44 00 49. Assuming that this is Bigourdan's object, and that he misidentified his comparison star, I reduced his observation. The resulting position is 12 09 41.0, +44 00 59. The 10 second and 10 arcsec differences are striking, but are difficult to understand given that Bigourdan read his micrometer in terms of position angle and distance and later reduced them to RA and Dec offsets. Since there is still nothing at Bigourdan's place (assuming the mistaken identity for the comparison star), I'm tempted to assume some kind of error in his observation leading to the digit errors. But so far, I've not been able to find it.