NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 4661 has often been referred to in the literature as "NGC 4650B". At first glance, we might think this alternate designation comes from deV's "Stromlo 13" monograph on the southern Shapley-Ames galaxies. But there is no trace of it there. "NGC 4650B" does appear, however, in RC2. Tracing it back from there leads to a paper in Astrophysics and Space Science (volume 19, page 387, 1972) by J. L. Sersic and E. L. Aguero -- who refer to it only as "G7" in a southern chain of galaxies. So, the awkward notation does indeed originate in RC2 (sigh). My guess is that Antoinette noticed that it and "G5" are near NGC 4650 and, following Gerard's example, put "NGC 4650A" on "G5" and "NGC 4650B" on "G7". So how did everyone miss the original NGC number? The NGC declination is 17 arcmin in error, but is not marked as uncertain, nor is it truncated as many of the NGC positions are. The only indication in GC that something is amiss is the number of observations used: "1::". Otherwise, that, too, is given to the usual full precision that JH adopted. Going on back to the CGH observations, though, we find that JH has only one observation of the galaxy in June of 1834, just a few months after his arrival at the Cape. And the position there is given only to a full minute of time in RA, and an arcminute in NPD. Both are marked with plus-minus signs, and JH has no notes of explanation. Given that, and the fact that "NGC 4650B" is the only galaxy around that JH could have reasonably seen -- his object nearly identifies itself in spite of the crude position.

===== NGC 4661 24" (4/12/08 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): at 200x this Centaurus cluster member (AGC 3526) was moderately bright, fairly small, elongated 2:1 WNW-ESE, 0.8'x0.4'. Located just 1' S of a 45" pair of mag 12.5 stars and 11.7' SE of NGC 4661.