NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

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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.