NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 6534. When I looked at this nearly 20 years ago, I wrote NGC 6534 is probably lost, like so many other of Swift's nebulae. The galaxy that CGCG chooses (CGCG 322-022) is about 1.2 minutes of time preceding Swift's position, and 2.3 arcmin south. Furthermore, the surrounding star field does not match Swift's note "... in center of a semi-circle of 4 stars." In particular, there is a fairly bright star within an arcmin of the galaxy to the north. If Swift saw this galaxy, he would surely have noted the star. Are there any other candidates in the area? Galaxies that could be forced to fit Swift's description include NGC 6505 (= UGC 11026), NGC 6536 (= UGC 11077), and CGCG 322-032. None of these, however, are at positions that would be even digits off of the nominal position. I don't think they are likely to be the correct nebula, either. I'm listing the CGCG identity with a question mark. It's clear to me that it is the wrong object, but there is nothing else that comes as close. Searching the field again in January 2016, I see that CGCG 322-020 is in the "... center of a semi-circle of 4 stars." It's position is 2m 45s west and 5.9 arcminutes north of Swift's place. Normally, this would not bother me too much given what we know now about the errors that can occur in Swift's positions -- but the other 10 galaxies he found that night all have very good positions. The mean offset is just 3.6 seconds of time east and 36 arcseconds north with no outstandingly bad places. One difference to note is that the observation that became NGC 6534 is over an hour and a half east of the mean position of the other 10 galaxies; did Swift somehow loose his tight lock on the coordinate system that he used for the first ten? This assumes, of course, that he swept up his nebulae in RA order. So, there are still questions and no really good candidates. I've listed the two most likely ones with question marks, and note again that the galaxy chosen by CGCG has a pretty bright star less than an arcminute north that Swift would surely have commented on.

===== NGC 6534 24" (9/1/16): fairly faint, small, round, 15" diameter, occasional faint stellar nucleus. Located just 48" of a mag 10.4 star. A 1' pair of mag 10/11 stars is 3.5' NE. Forms a close pair with LEDA 2666218 1.2' S. The companion is faint, small, round, 15" diameter, low even surface brightness. CGCG 322-010 lies 11' NW. At 220x it appeared fairly faint, small, slightly elongated ~N-S, 15"x10". Contains a faint stellar nucleus surrounded by a faint halo. A mag 11.8 star is 2' S, a mag 14 star is 2' ESE and a mag 13.5 star is 2' NE. CGCG 322-010 fits Swift's published description much better than CGCG 322-022, but is a poorer match in position. 17.5" (8/4/94): very faint, extremely small, round. Located 50" S of a mag 10 star. With direct vision appears stellar, about mag 15. With averted vision a very small halo is visible, perhaps 15" diameter. Located 22' NW of mag 7.7 SAO 17717. On the POSS this galaxy is almost stellar with a very faint ring.