NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 7761 = IC 5361. This is one of two galaxies in this area found by Ormond Stone in 1886 at Leander McCormick. As you know by now, I am not generally thrilled with the positions that Stone has left us in the AJ articles announcing the discovery of these things. Nevertheless, it has been possible to identify most of the objects. In this case, we need to go back to Stone's notes since he left us no sketch of the field. In the notes to NGC 7776 -- which he DID sketch -- we find the note "near [N7761]". We can definitely show that N7776 is the same object as IC 1514, so Stone's rough positions yeild an offset of about 3 minutes of time in RA and an identical declination (though the declination for N7776 is marked with a plus-minus sign) to N7761. When we apply those offsets to N7776 = I1514 -- noting that the nominal Dec for N7761 is not marked with any uncertainty symbol -- we find IC 5361 at just about where we'd expect it to be if it is indeed N7761. Since the description pretty well fits, I'm confident of the identification. The note in the second IC is a bit misleading because Howe thought he searched in vain for N7761 and N7776. He did, in fact, come across N7761, but took it to be new. Thus it, like N7776, ended up with an IC number -- IC 5361 -- too.

===== NGC 7761 17.5" (8/29/92): fairly faint, small, round, 1' diameter, very even concentration, small bright core, very symmetrical appearance. Two brighter stars mag 10 are 3.5' W and 7' WSW. Located in a field that is strangely devoid of any faint stars.