NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 4554 is another of Tempel's lost nebulae. He has only a brief note about it in his fifth paper, calling it a very faint nebula 50 seconds preceding, 2.5 arcmin south of NGC 4567/8. This position is in the middle of an extraordinarily empty field with nothing brighter than 19th magnitude for 2-3 arcmin in all directions. Checking the signs of Tempel's offsets turned up nothing that matched in any of the other three possible positions. There is a double star (noted in the position table) that might be his object. It has a faint double galaxy about an arcmin to the northwest, and an even fainter double star a bit further away to the southeast -- these may have enhanced a nebulous appearance a bit. However, adopting the brighter double as Tempel's object would require not only changing the sign of the declination offset, but its size and the size of the RA offset as well. So, I doubt very much that the double is Tempel's intended object. Until Tempel's original observing records can be examined for possible errors, this object will have to remain "lost."