NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 5892 was first seen by Ormond Stone with the Leander McCormick 26-inch refractor in the mid-1880s. His position is off in declination as well as in RA, so none of the early lists where the galaxy appears (Edward Fath in AJ 28, 75, 1914; the Shapley-Ames catalogue; MCG; RC1/2) caught the NGC number. As far as I can determine, Jack Sulentic in RNGC was the first to assign the number to the galaxy. Stone's brief description (m = 16.0, D = 2.5 arcmin, gbM) fits the galaxy. Unfortunately, he did not leave us a sketch, so the identification is not as solid as I'd like. But given that his RA is 2.5 minutes to the west of the galaxy -- a common Leander McCormick error -- and that his declination is close to 30 arcminutes too far north, I'm fairly confident that Jack chose the correct object.

===== NGC 5892 17.5" (7/9/94): very faint but fairly large, round, 2.5' diameter. Very low but uneven surface brightness (weak irregular concentration) with no distinct borders. Located just NW of a group of five mag 13.5-14.5 stars forming a parallelogram asterism (the southern base consists of three collinear stars); the closest mag 13.5 star is just off the ESE edge 1.3' from center. NGC identification is very uncertain.