NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 7431, as faint as it is, is pinpointed by Bigourdan's micrometric observation as a compact galaxy with a superposed star just three arcminutes preceding NGC 7433. I had called this a double galaxy when I looked at it earlier on the POSS1 prints, but the SDSS clearly shows the preceding object to be a star. The NGC position, derived from Bigourdan's observation, is fortuitously within a few arcseconds of the true position. The slightly brighter star is included in GSC, and is one of the Lick Northern Proper Motion survey reference "galaxies." The Lick plates were taken with an 18-inch astrograph and clearly had even less resolution than the 48-inch Palomar Schmidt.

===== NGC 7431 48" (10/26/16): at 610x; this object consists of a mag 15 star with a very small galaxy attached on the east side. A low surface brightness, round glow extended ~10" diameter. The star and the center of the galaxy are separated by only 5"! Located 4.3' WNW of NGC 7436 in a group. 17.5" (8/25/95): with direct vision appears as a mag 14.5 star with no noticeable halo. With averted vision, an extremely small halo is sometimes visible, perhaps 10" in diameter. Located 4.3' WNW of NGC 7436 and faintest in a group of four galaxies. A mag 14.5 star is 1.4' SW. On the DSS the galaxy is virtually stellar with the star attached on the west edge. The galaxy identified as NGC 7431in the RNGC, UGC (notes) and CGCG is CGCG 475-006 (possibly NGC 7433), located 1.5' NW of NGC 7436 and not seen in this observation though was not difficult in my 24".