NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 6873. JH's position (and so GC and NGC) is 1 minute of time too large. The correct position for Struve 2631 (the double star noted in the description) puts it into the midst of a relatively rich Milky Way field. But JH is right in calling it "... a coarse straggling group of stars 10...13m, hardly entitled to be called a cluster." The grouping is approximately 13 arcmin x 10 arcmin with a center of gravity just south of the double very close JH's position corrected by 1 minute in RA. On the DSS2R image in February 2016, I make the cluster smaller (10' x 8'), and put the center somewhat to the southeast of the double star. While I can just make out the somewhat larger cluster that I mentioned earlier, it no longer impresses me as much, so I would suggest a visual survey of the field to find JH's object.

===== NGC 6873 17.5" (8/25/95): fairly rich region but there is no noticeable clustering. There is a 15' string starting from the mag 10 star at the NGC position heading due west and ending at the bright double ·2631 = 8.4/9.8 at 4.6". This star is very possibly the double referred to in John Herschel's description with a 1.0 tmin error in RA -- Corwin concurs. 17.5" (7/7/94): the low power field (100x using 20 Nagler) surrounding the pretty double star Theta Sagittae = ·2637 (6.5/9.0 at 12") includes several bright stars but appears too sparse to be a cluster. But 5' NE of Theta is a neat elongated group of 15 stars mag 12-13 forming a "?" asterism about 6' in length. Theta Sagittae is located 1.7 tmin east and 11' S of Herschel's position so this identification is less likely than the one given above.