NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 6448. I had written about this: NGC 6448 is lost. It is the 60th entry in Swift's second list. Dreyer copied all of Swift's data exactly and correctly into the NGC. There are no galaxies in the area that might be Swift's object, and I can't find an obvious digit error that would lead to another (though I did not check for large errors, e.g. 10 degrees, 1 hour). Swift found no other nebulae the night of 16 July 1885, so we have no possible systematic offset to work from, either. During preparation of his Visual Atlas of the NGC, Jeffrey Corder suggested the linear asterism -- one brighter star in a line with three fainter -- as Swift's object. The RA is about 30 seconds west of Swift's, and the Decs agree to within half an arcminute. Jeff's own observation with his 17.5-inch reflector agrees closely with Swift's description ("vF, pS, R, lbM"), but Jeff notes it as "a little extended in PA = 90 degrees", while Swift made it simply "round". The main problem with this asterism is the brightest star in the center -- it is much brighter than the other three stars. Unless the night Swift found it was one of poor seeing, I'm doubtful that he would see this as anything but a star. This is, nevertheless, the best candidate in the area, so I have put it into the main table, with the appropriate colons, of course.

===== NGC 6448 18" (8/27/11): At 175x I identified a mag 11.6 star that possibly appeared to have one or more faint companions as there was a slightly hazy glow very near extended E-W. At 393x, three close, very faint companions were resolved; two following and one preceding, with all 4 stars roughly collinear. The two companions to the east are at 17" and 30" from the brighter star, while the companion to the west is at a separation of 19". The brightest of the three faint stars is at the east end, though all three are near V = 15.5. Located 15' S of 5.8-magnitude HD 161693.