NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 6908 is a companion of NGC 6907 superposed on its northeastern arm. Barry Madore first pointed this out to me after he examined an image from 2MASS -- N6908 is clearly a separate object interacting with N6907. It is overwhelmed on blue plates by N6907's arm, but is clearly seen not only in the 2MASS images, but on red plates as well. I suspect it would be just as clearly seen at the eyepiece of a large telescope. For more, see Barry and his colleague's paper in AJ 134, 314, 2007, "The Curious Case of NGC 6908". Unfortunately, they imply there that NGC 6908 was discovered by JH at the same time he found NGC 6907. It was, in fact, found by Albert Marth with Lassell's 48-inch reflector. Marth's original description reads "eF, vS, lE (close to h. 2076)." Dreyer shortened the parenthetical comment to read "h2076 p". This is just enough different that it may have thrown both RC1 and RNGC off the trail; both noted it as identical to N6908, which it is definitely not.

===== NGC 6908 48" (10/25/14): at 610x; the elongated brightening in the northeast spiral arm appeared fairly bright, elongated 3:1 N-S, ~21"x7", very small bright core. This was the first time this object appeared as a superimposed galaxy and not just as a weak brightening in the arm itself. 24" (8/14/15): the companion galaxy superimposed on the eastern arm was clearly visible and fairly well defined, elongated 5:2 N-S, ~20"x8". 24" (7/25/14): A bright arm is attached at the east end of NGC 6907's bar and extends due north for 0.7', at a right angle to the bar. A bright, elongated N-S "knot" is embedded in the middle (superimposed companion NGC 6908). At the north end, the arm curls west a short distance while dimming out. 24" (9/15/12): the spiral arm that extends north on the eastern end of the bar of NGC 6907 contains a noticeable brightening on the north end that is actually a superimposed galaxy. The companion is elongated 3:1 N-S, 0.3'x0.1' and appears as a short streak within the arm. NGC 6908 may apply to the entire spiral arm or this elongated brightening (galaxy). 18" (9/3/08): this number refers to the prominent spiral arm on the NE side where an anonymous galaxy (elongated N-S) is superimposed on the arm in roughly the same orientation! Visually the spiral arm hooks directly to the north from the east end of the central bar, just where the galaxy is located, though the galaxy was not distinguishable.