NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 4782 and NGC 4783 are together 3C 278. Thus, they have attracted considerable attention over the second half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, as a close pair with the NGC positions implying a different relative orientation than the objects themselves, there have been several blunders in the various catalogues. The GC and NGC themselves say that NGC 4782 is the "p of D neb", with N4783 obviously being the "f of D neb". The positions are slightly mysterious as WH has only one listed for the pair in his published catalogue. Yet JH has them clearly separated in GC, and Dreyer follows right along in the NGC. In both catalogues, N4782 is one second of time preceding and an arcminute north of N4783. Perhaps WH has separate positions in his second observation, or perhaps JH simply took his father's comment "Dist[ance] 1' near[ly in the] mer[idian]" literally and placed the two objects straddling the single measured position. Whatever happened has led to much confusion about the names of the galaxies. JH, by the way, did not sweep them up, nor did anyone else observe them before he assembled the GC, so he must have relied on his father's observations. Among the post-NGC observers, Bigourdan and Reinmuth put N4782 on the south- southwestern galaxy, and N4783 on the north-northeastern. The three Reference Catalogues, PGC, and NED, also number the galaxies in RA order. Other papers have not been as careful, sometimes giving the earlier number to the later galaxy. This has led to the Reference Catalogues, PGC, and NED (until June 2006) all switching the redshifts for the galaxies. The lower redshift actually applies to the north-northwestern galaxy, NGC 4783. There may well be similar problems in the diameters and photometry, but I've not investigated those thoroughly yet. All this simply points to the importance of using positions as well as names when publishing data. Also see NGC 4802 where these figure in the identification of that and NGC 4804.

===== NGC 4782 17.5" (3/23/85): moderately bright, very small, round. Forms an extremely close contact pair with NGC 4783 in a common halo 0.6' NNE of center. 8" (3/28/81): faint, very small. Contact pair with NGC 4783 oriented SSW-NNE.