NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort
(This is a very very beta version)
NGC5816
Basic Information
Location and Magnitude
Right Ascension: 15:0:4.8
Declination: -16:5:37
Constellation: LIB
Visual Magnitude: 14.8
Historic Information
Discoverer: Stone
Year of discovery: 1886
Discovery aperture: 26.3
Observational
Summary description: F, pS, gbMN, stellar
Sub-type: S0
Corwin's Notes
=====
NGC 5816 and NGC 5817 are two more of the nebulae found at Leander McCormick
in the mid-1880s for which only approximate RAs were given. There are no
sketches to help with the identifications.
Herbert Howe searched for at least one of the nebulae from Chamberlain
Observatory at Denver, but has only this to say about N5817, "The position is
14 54 07, -15 46.9." (The equinox is 1900.0.) This position falls on one of
two galaxies 2.5 minutes west of Stone's RA, an offset common among many other
of the Leander McCormick nebulae. Howe says nothing at all about N5816.
Howe's declination falls between Stone's two, so I'm not convinced that the
object Howe observed should actually be called NGC 5817. It is, in fact, the
brighter of the pair. That would suggest it is really NGC 5816, which Stone
puts at m = 11.0, compared to N5817 which he has at m = 14.0. However, Stone
also puts the brighter object to the north, while the real brightest galaxy is
the southern of the pair.
Given this confusion, I'm going to keep Howe's identity for the brighter
object as NGC 5817. The galaxy already appears in several catalogues under
that number, and Dreyer included the corrected RA in the notes to IC2 under
the same number.
Steve's Notes
=====
NGC 5816
18" (6/21/09): extremely faint, very small, round, 12" diameter. This difficult galaxy was visible nearly continuously with averted. Located 7.7' NE of NGC 5817. The NGC identifications of these two galaxies is uncertain.