NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 4280 may be the short line of three stars between N4279 and N4285. Swift has it as the "2nd of 3," but there are only two galaxies here. Howe calls them N4280 and N4285, but modern catalogs (including ESGC) have made them the two outer objects of the triple Swift claimed to have seen. Unfortunately, he has no notes about stars in the area, so we are left only with his poor positions and inconsistent descriptions of brightness (he calls the last of the three the brightest; Howe noted correctly that it is actually fainter than the preceding galaxy). There are also no systematic offsets in the positions of the other galaxies he found the same night (see also N6059), so we can't recover the missing nebula that way. So, the only faintly reasonable explanation is that Swift's middle "nebula" is the line of stars, but this is little more than a guess.

===== NGC 4280 18" (5/8/04): this number may apply to a trio of mag 15 stars situated between NGC 4279 and NGC 4285. The two brighter stars were noted, although I was not looking for the fainter third star. This identification is uncertain and listed as nonexistent in RNGC.