NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort
(This is a very very beta version)
NGC4246
Basic Information
Location and Magnitude
Right Ascension: 12:17:58.1
Declination: +7:11:8
Constellation: VIR
Visual Magnitude: 12.7
Historic Information
Discoverer: Herschel W.
Year of discovery: 1784
Discovery aperture: 18.7
Observational
Summary description: eF
Sub-type: Sc
Corwin's Notes
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NGC 4246 = IC 3113 (which also see). In a note in the NGC, Dreyer defends the
use of the declination from a Harvard observation by G. M. Searle rather than
from WH's single observation. As it happens, Searle is correct. The RA is
only five seconds out, so the identity with IC 3113 is solid. Since there are
other NGC objects in the area that Schwassmann did not identify as such (see
e.g. NGC 4223 = IC 3102), I am beginning to think that he had a reason to omit
the numbers from his table. Perhaps the confusion explained in the note about
N4223 above had something to do with it. I'll have to dig into Schwassmann's
text a bit to see if anything obvious falls out.
Steve's Notes
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NGC 4246
17.5" (3/24/90): faint, moderately large, elongated ~E-W, very low surface brightness. A mag 14 star is off the east edge 2.0' NE of center. Forms a pair with NGC 4247 5.4' N.