NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 6714. Earlier, I wrote NGC 6714 is probably lost. There is nothing at Swift's position, though his note "... sev B sts nr n" is appropriate for his field. Did he perhaps see a faint comet? Since he rarely comments about verifying his nebulae, this seems a possibility worth mentioning, at least in this case. Barring a digit error, though, this object may be gone forever. However, in July 2009, Jeff Corder picked up on the idea of a digit error and found an appropriate asterism just one minute of time following Swift's position. There are about 10 faint stars here, appearing to Jeff in his 17.5-inch reflector as "eF, S, irr R, mottled, one eF * res[olved with] averted vis[ion], v diffic, sev B sts n[orth]." This reads almost exactly as if Swift himself had written the beginning and ending of it. I'm comfortable taking this as a prime candidate for Swift's object. ----- Checking JPL's "Small Body Identification" web site, I found that there were no comets near Swift's position on 27 May 1886 when he found his object. The asterism that Jeff suggested is still the prime candidate for NGC 6714.

===== NGC 6714 18" (7/2/11): at 285x, I initially noticed at this position a low surface brightness glow, ~1' diameter, mimicking a nebulous object. When the seeing sharpened, though, the glow resolved into 4 extremely faint stars mag 15-16 (difficult to hold all simultaneously). Nearly on a line with mag 8.6 HD 174788 5' NE and mag 8.9 SAO 18027 7.5' NE. A string of three equally spaced mag 13 star begins 3' W.