NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 4443 has usually been taken as a star following NGC 4435 and NGC 4438. Exactly which star, I'm not sure as there is nothing at the NGC position aside from a 19th or 20th magnitude object. In any event, the only evidence we have for this object comes from one observation in 1849 when LdR's observer, Johnstone Stoney, sketched it as the last of 11 nebulae. The sketch is fairly crude and the distances between the objects do not correspond well to what we see on the sky. Indeed, LdR himself says, "Found the objects as in sketch, positions being put down very rudely." Nevertheless, we -- and Dreyer who identified the objects for LdR's 1880 monograph -- can recognize the brightest galaxies in an east-west swath of sky through the center of the Virgo Cluster. His objects are as follows (in his order): alpha = NGC 4305 beta = NGC 4306 gamma = NGC 4374 delta = NGC 4387 epsilon = NGC 4388 zeta = NGC 4406 eta = NGC 4402 lambda = NGC 4425 theta = NGC 4435 iota = NGC 4438 kappa = NGC 4443 As I noted above, there is nothing in the exact position of LdR's "kappa", but NGC 4461 is not too far away. It is certainly not a big stretch to get to this galaxy, and its description is a relative fit to the others. The objection to this is that only one galaxy is shown in the sketch, whereas there are, of course, two on the sky: NGC 4458 is not too far northwest of N4461. Given the hurried nature of the observations, though, it may be that Stoney thought N4458 to be a star. It is considerably smaller and fainter than its companion, so this is a possibility. So, I'm going to take N4443 to be a duplicate discovery of N4461, but with some uncertainty.

===== NGC 4443 See observing notes for NGC 4461. NGC identification very uncertain.