Index Catalogue of Nebulae found in the Years 1888 to 1894, with Notes and
Corrections to the New General Catalogue. By J. L. E. DREYER, Ph.D.
[Received Jan. 10; read Jan. 11, 1895]
The New General Catalogue contains the places and descriptions of all
the nebulae known at the end of the year 1887. In the following catalogue I
have put together all the new nebulae of which the places and descriptions
have been published since then and up to the end of 1894. Most of these
objects are very faint and minute, and doubtless represent but a very small
part of the innumerable host of similar objects which are within the reach of
our largest telescopes, while not a few of those found with moderate-sized
instruments will probably turn out to be nothing but two or three very faint
stars close together. But although the majority of these new nebulae cannot
compare in interest with those catalogued in earlier years, it seems useful to
have their places readily accessible in an index catalogue, though the number
of observers to whom this will be of use will naturally be a comparatively
limited one.
The catalogue is arranged exactly like the New General Catalogue, and
requires but little explanation. The names of the observers will be found in
the second column. A high number in brackets, e.g. (3259), denotes the
number of the Astronomische Nachrichten, where the account of the finding of
the object is recorded. The other references are as follow:
B. is BIGOURDAN'S second list, Comptes Rendus, March and April 1891.
Numbers below 102 refer to his first list (ibid., November and December
1887), a few objects from which are not in the New General Catalogue.
BURNHAM. See Publications of the Lick Observatory, vol. ii.
DENNING. Monthly Notices, vol. li. p. 96, and a privately communicated
list, in which some of the positions in the printed list had been corrected.
ESPIN. See Monthly Notices, vol. liv. p. 327.
J. refers to M. JAVELLE'S two lists of 807 new nebulae found with the
great equitorial of 30 inches aperture at the Nice Observatory (Annales, T.
iv. and T. vi.). The positions are micrometrically determined.
KOBOLD. See Astr. Nachr., No. 3184
O. St. refers to the Publications of the Leander McCormick Observatory,
Part 6 (southern Nebulae, micrometric observations).
PICKERING. See Annals of Harvard College Obsrvatory, vol. xviii., where
a list of objects discovered by photography is given.
Sf. refers to the list of objects found by Professor SAFFORD, and given in
an appendix to the New General Catalogue. I have inserted them here
(though found before 1888), as very few people ever think of referring to an
appendix.
SPITALER. See Astr. Nachr., Nos. 3167-68. The positions are micro-
metrically determined.
Sw. refers to Mr. LEWIS SWIFT'S four lists of nebulae found at the
Warner Observatory, Rochester, N.Y.
VII. Astr. Nachr. 2859.
VIII. " " 2918.
IX. " " 3004.
X. " " 3094.
(X.) A few objects in Monthly Notices, vol. liii. p. 273.
The positions of these objects are generally reliable within one or two
minutes of arc, but larger errors occur occasionally, and as Mr. SWIFT rarely
mentions whether he has seen other nebulae in the neighborhood of the
supposed new ones, it is generally very difficult to be certain that the latter
are identical with old ones. The absence of estimations of magnitudes
and distances of the stars mentioned as being near the observed nebulae is
also to be regretted.
THOME refers to some nebulae picked off the charts of the Cordoba
Durchmusterung.
With regard to the descriptions of the objects it will be necessary for
observers to bear in mind the aperture of the instrument with which each
object has been found, as a comparison between the descriptions of the same
nebula bound by Mr. SWIFT with a 16-inch refractor, and by Dr. SPITALER
with a 27-inch, or M. JAVELLE with a 30-inch, shows that the first-mentioned
observer always describes it as much fainter than the others do, as is only
natural.
Two clusters in MESSIER'S catalogue do not occur in the New General
Catalogue, and may perhaps be mentioned here. They are (for 1860):
M. 25 18h 23m 17s 109° 2'.0 Cl of S st.
M. 48 8h 6m 54s 91° 32'.1 Cl of S st.
I have inserted in the catalogue a few very extensive and diffused
nebulosities detected by means of photography by Mr. BARNARD and Professor
MAX WOLF. The fifty-two regions found by WILLIAM HERSCHEL to be more
or less "affected with nebulosity" ought to be re-examined by means of
photography. Their places are given in the Phil. Trans. for 1811, p. 275, and
in AUWERS' catalogue of W. HERSCHEL'S nebulae (Königsberger Beobach-
tungen, xxxiv. p. 199).
At the end of the catalogue I have given some notes and corrections to
the New General Catalogue, relating chiefly to objects the places of which have
been more accurately determined during recent years. Much valuable work
has been done in this direction by Dr. SPITALER and Mr. BURNHAM, but there
are still many doubtful cases to be examined by the possessors of large tele-
scopes, and it is much to be hoped that some of these may turn their attention
from the finding of new "eeF, eS" nebulae to the less showy but more useful
work of verifying the many old nebulae which require re-observation.
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