NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 6426. This relatively faint globular has an uneven distribution of stars across its face; it is possible that foreground obscuration has something to do with that. Whatever the cause, this has led to "mean" positions from some of the automated surveys to be skewed to the east by a clump of several bright stars on that side of the cluster's core. The position I've finally chosen, from GSC 2.3, is close to the apparent photometric center of the outer isophotes. This is clearly a cluster which deserves a good photometric study such as those by Goldsbury et al (AJ 140, 1830, 2010) and Noyola and Gebhardt (AJ 132, 447, 2006) to determine its position.

===== NGC 6426 24" (7/30/16): at 260x and 432x; fairly faint, round, moderately large, 2.5' diameter. Contains a very small, slightly brighter core that is elongated N-S and lively. A few faint stars are resolved around at the edges of the halo and several additional stars occasionally sparkle within the halo. A 15-15.5 magnitude star is at the north edge of core. In addition, five slightly brighter stars are arranged N-S along the west side of the halo; a single mag 14 star near the NW side, two mag 14.5-15 stars on the west side, and two mag 15/15.5 stars on the SW side. 18" (8/23/03): at 160x, appears fairly faint with an irregular triangular outline, 2.5' diameter. There is only a weak concentration though the surface has a patchy, irregular appearance with a few faint stars superimposed. At 435x, the brightest resolved star is at the northwest edge. A few others are collinear in the halo along the western side. The slightly brighter core is offset east of the geometric center and just resolved into several extremely faint stars at moments. A total of up to 10 mag 15/16 stars are barely resolved. 17.5" (5/30/92): fairly faint, 3' diameter, slightly elongated, only a weak central condensation, slightly granular. Two or three faint stars are resolved at the edge of the halo. At 286x, a few additional very faint stars are resolved over the core for a total resolution of just six stars. A striking double ·2202 = 6.2/6.6 at 21" lies 36' S. 8" (6/22/81): faint, small, round, diffuse.