NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 5086 is almost surely the double star 15 arcsec north of JH's position. There is a possibility that may be the single star with a very faint companion closer to his position, but this is unlikely. ESO chose a very faint galaxy (ESO 270-G001) to be NGC 5086, but at 17th magnitude, it is well beyond JH's limit. JH saw the other three bright objects in the group (N5082, N5090, and N5091) on two nights, but only recorded this one once in Sweep 788 on 7 April 1837. His description ("eF, R, 15 arcsec. The 2nd of a group of 4") makes it the faintest and smallest of the group. Since there are no galaxies exactly at his position, I earlier picked out two asterisms that he may have seen. Having the Herschel Archive in hand, I've finally (June 2015) been able to check the sweep itself. There are no reduction errors; in particular, if JH had made a mistake in recording the wire number, the object would be well east of the group. There are, however, small systematic offsets in both RA and Dec for the other three objects from JH's positions. His RA is too large by 1.1 seconds of time, and his Dec is too far south by 0.7 arcminutes. Correcting his position for NGC 5086 by these amounts moves it north and west to within about twenty arcseconds of a double star. It seems likely that this is the object that he intended as the fourth of the group.