NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 7726. When I measured positions in Abell 2634 for RC2, I assigned the number N7726 to the galaxy at 23 39 11.6, +26 06 58 (J2000.0; N7720 is at 23 38 29.1, +27 01 59; N7728 at 23 40 00.6, +27 08 06; and IC 5342 is at 23 38 38.5, +27 00 42). However, I had not then dug out Swift's original description: "eeF; pS; R; e diff; pB * nr f; [N7728] nr nf, but is not little, but very elongated." I really have to stretch to make my first choice fit this description; the "pB *" is hardly "near" (but keep in mind Swift's 33 arcmin field!), though it is north-following, as is N7728 (more following than north). And the galaxy is not round as Swift claims; it is quite elongated. Swift's description of N7728 is also wrong: it is indeed "little elongated," just as d'Arrest has it. So, which galaxy did Swift see? I don't see any other object in Abell 2634 that fits his description. For the time being, I'm going to let my original identification stand, but it is certainly questionable. RC3 is almost certainly wrong, and the number N7726 ought to be deleted from PGC 71991 and -- perhaps! -- added to PGC 72024. ----- So there it stood for many years. When I came back to this in May 2016, I wondered again just what Swift had seen nearly 130 years ago. Could he perhaps have rediscovered NGC 7720? He says nothing about it, and his declination is more nearly in line with it than the bright galaxies to the north. This would mean, however, that his "pB * nr f" would be about twenty arcminutes away, hardly "near" and certainly well out of his field if he had his new nebula centered at all well. Is it possible that he has gotten his directions confused; perhaps the "pB *" is near preceding rather than following. In this case, he may have confused his new object and NGC 7728. This might account for his comment about that object's elongation. None of that made much sense in view of the field, so I checked on other galaxies Swift found that night. The short answer is that there is a small systematic error in both RA or Dec for the other three galaxies (NGC 7500, 7509, and 7624), but it is not nearly large enough (-1 arcminute in RA, and +0.9 arcminute in Dec, in the sense Swift minus modern) to move Swift's nominal position anywhere near the candidate galaxies. My conclusion from all this is to change the colon on the identification to a two solid question marks. Swift just hasn't left us enough to go on -- and what we do have from him does not match the sky.

===== NGC 7726 17.5" (8/10/91): very faint, small, elongated 3:2 WSW-ENE, weak concentration. A mag 11 star is 2.6' SW. Located 10.7' NE of NGC 7720 in AGC 2634. NGC 7728 lies 11' E and CGCG 476-095 is 11' NW.