NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

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NGC5309

 

Basic Information


Location and Magnitude


Right Ascension: 13:49:55.0
Declination: -15:46:18
Constellation: VIR
Visual Magnitude:

Historic Information


Discoverer: Swift E.
Year of discovery: 1887
Discovery aperture: 16.0

Observational


Summary description: vF, pS, R, bet * and D *
Sub-type: NF

Corwin's Notes

===== NGC 5309. This was found the night of 27 April 1887 by Edward Swift, Lewis's teenaged son. He calls it "vF, pS, R, between a star and a coarse double star following." There is nothing in the position given in Swift's list, and I do not find reasonable candidates at big digit errors (1 hour in RA, 1 degree in Dec, etc), but there is a possible 10 arcmin digit error (more below). Wolfgang's candidate may be too faint for either Swift (father or son) to have seen, and the flanking stars are faint, too (the double star is much more south than east of this galaxy). My own candidate, while somewhat brighter, is further from Swift's position, though the declination offset (-9 arcmin 10 arcsec) suggests a digit error. The RA offset (+18 sec) is also in line with the other RA offsets of galaxies found that same night by Edward (see NGC 4740 for more on this), so the position at least is suggestive. However, the "coarse double star following" is as much south as east, and is also quite faint. So, I've put question marks on both objects in the position table.