NGC 1. See NGC 7839. ===== NGC 2. See NGC 7839. ===== NGC 3. See NGC 4. ===== NGC 4. This really is the very faint galaxy about an arcminute south of Marth's position. He was observing with a 48-inch reflector, the second largest telescope in the world at the time, so he really could see very faint galaxies like this. LEDA took NPM1G +07.0004 as NGC 4. This is brighter, yes, but it is nearly 21 arcmin away from Marth's position, and by funny numbers in both RA and Dec (52 seconds of time, and 16.5 arcmin). Also, Marth's relative position from NGC 3 pins this down. He found both on the same night in November of 1864, so the telescope was zeroed the same for both galaxies. Marth's offset from NGC 3 to NGC 4 is just 10 seconds in RA and 5 arcmin in Dec. The offsets from modern positions are 7.6 seconds in RA and 4 arcmin 20 arcsec in Dec. This is well within the errors of Marth's usual accuracy, so the identification is secure. ===== NGC 6 = NGC 20. On the night of 20 September 1885, Lewis Swift found six objects. Four of these (NGC 19, NGC 21, NGC 7831, and NGC 7836; see the notes for these, too) have mean offsets in their positions as published by Swift, from the correct positions, of -1m 10s in RA and -8m 08s in Dec. A fifth found later in the night, NGC 801, has offsets of +19s and +0.9m; Swift clearly "re-zeroed" his telescope in the interim. The sixth object, NGC 6, shares the right ascension offsets of the first four, but its declination is about 45 arcmin too large. It's identity with NGC 20 is secured by Swift's note "... one of 5 sts which point to it is pretty near." The unmistakeable line of five stars stretches about 2 arcmin to the east; Swift's "pretty near" star is about 15 arcsec east of the galaxy. ===== NGC 8 is a double star about 3 arcmin northwest of NGC 9. Both objects were found by Otto Sturve in September 1865, NGC 9 on the 27th, and NGC 8 on the 29th. Struve's relative positions for the two are good, though his absolute positions are -12 sec and -2 arcmin off. His measurement of the 10th mag star about 6 arcmin east-southeast of NGC 9, however, clearly identifies the two objects he saw. ===== NGC 9 is a peculiar spiral with a bright blue knot on its southern arm, found by Otto Struve. Though Struve's position is about 3 arcmin off, his measurement of the star 6 arcmin east of the galaxy insures the identification. See NGC 8 for more. ===== NGC 14. See NGC 7555. ===== NGC 17 = NGC 34. This galaxy is clearly identified by its discovers' (Muller and Swift) descriptions of nearby stars, in particular the double star two arcmin west-northwest. Along with many other of the Leander McCormick nebulae, its approximate position is about 2 minutes of time too far east. Herbert Howe was the first to suggest the identity, again based on the clear descriptions of the double star, which he observed just where Muller and Swift claimed it to be. ===== NGC 18 is a double star 4 arcmin east of NGC 16. It was found by Herman Schultz whose micrometric position, measured on two nights, is within 3 arcsec of the GSC position. Dreyer notes that N18 was not seen by either d'Arrest or by Lord Rosse. ===== NGC 19. As with NGC 6 (which see), NGC 19 is unambiguously identified by Swift's note about the surrounding star field: "... in center of 3 very faint stars forming an equilateral triangle, two of them double." The double stars are northwest and southwest of the galaxy, with the third star being east- southeast. Swift's position for the galaxy also shares the systematic offset of NGC 21, NGC 7831, and NGC 7836 from the true position. Concidentally, Swift's position for NGC 21 (which see) is near NGC 19 which has led some to mistakenly call the latter galaxy NGC 21. ===== NGC 20 is also = NGC 6 (which see). NGC 20's original NGC position is correct. ===== NGC 21 = NGC 29. Though Swift makes no comment about the surrounding star field, the identity of his object with Herschel's is clinched by the offset of his (Swift's) position from the true position: NGC 19, 7831, and 7836 share the same offset (see NGC 6 for more information). The NGC position for NGC 29 is correct. ===== NGC 28 and NGC 31. Found by John Herschel during his stay at Cape Town in the mid-1830's, the identifications of these two galaxies are unequivocal. This has not prevented PGC from equivocating: it claims that the SGC identifications are wrong. Balderdash and bull feathers! Unfortunately, ESO missed the galaxies (and NGC 37 as well), so that N28 is not even in ESO. ESO 149-G020 is NGC 31, and ESO 149-G022 is NGC 37. All this is probably why the PGC folks were misled. The PGC error also crept over into RC3; the galaxy identified there as NGC 28 is actually NGC 31. ===== NGC 29. See NGC 21. ===== NGC 30 is a double star. This was recorded only once by Marth in late 1864 as a "nebulous star 13th magnitude." There are no galaxies within 10 arcmin of Marth's position, but the double star is within an arcmin. On a night of less than perfect seeing, it would probably appear as Marth described it. ===== NGC 31. See NGC 28. ===== NGC 32 is apparently the northeastern of a pair of stars separated by about 30 arcsec. It was found by Julius Schmidt on 10 Oct 1861, probably from Athens (where Schmidt had become director of the observatory 3 years earlier) with a 6.2-inch Ploessl refractor. He made a micrometric measurement of it, and provided a generic description, "A faint nebula." Auwers lists this as the first object in his appendix of nebulae discovered since the Herschels. Schmidt's position is within 3 arcsec of the star, so it is almost certainly the object he saw. ===== NGC 33 is a double star. The comment for NGC 30 fits this perfectly, too. The only difference is Marth's description: "eF, vS; or nebulous star." ===== NGC 34 = NGC 17, which see. ===== NGC 37. See NGC 28. ===== NGC 44 is a double star found by John Herschel. He describes it as "eF, vS; not to be seen but in the clearest night." There is a very faint galaxy 8.4 arcmin south of Herschel's position, but the double is within 15 arcsec and fits his description. ===== NGC 46 is a single star. Included as a nebula in the Markree Catalogue, it was reobserved twice in its catalogued place by Auwers who notes it as "... a completely sharp nebulous star 11th magnitude (9 arcmin north and 1 min 29 sec preceding a star 7.8 mag)." The 7.8 mag star is SAO 109091 which is exactly where Auwers says it is with respect to NGC 46. This positively identifies N46 as the star, as does the Markree position which is within 4 arcsec of the GSC position. ===== NGC 47 = NGC 58, which see. ===== NGC 50. See NGC 58. ===== NGC 54. See NGC 58. ===== NGC 55. See IC 1537. ===== NGC 56 does not exist. John Herschel recorded it only once very early in his observing career (Sweep 14 in 1825), saying, "About this place a considerable space seems affected with nebulosity." There is a possibility that he saw a reflection of the bright star 2 degrees north, but there is no other reasonable explanation for the observation. The other objects that he recorded in Sweep 14 (including M15) are all in the same area of the sky, so there is no gross error in the position. ===== NGC 58 = NGC 47. The brightest (N50) of the three nebulae (N47 and N54 are the others) in this group was found in 1866 by Brother Ferrari at the Vatican Observatory. It is one of only two in his short list, published in a note in AN 1571 by Father Secchi (the Observatory's director), which has a fairly accurate position. See NGC 7667 for more information about Secchi's note. Sometime later, Tempel went over the field and found Ferrari's nebula as well as a second nearby, N47. It seems likely that Tempel actually saw all three galaxies here, though Dreyer credits Tempel with observing only two of them (Wolfgang suggests that this might be one of Dreyer's rare errors). There is, by the way, no record of any of these in any of Tempel's ten published notes. So, he must have "announced" them in a letter to Dreyer. His position for N47 is good. Finally, on 21 October 1886, Lewis Swift saw all three nebulae. Since Secchi's position for the brightest is not exactly on the galaxy, and having no way to know of Tempel's observation, Swift included the three as new in his fifth list. Curiously, Dreyer credits only Secchi for N50, though he lists Swift as having observed the other two. Though Swift calls N58 the "3rd of 3," it is actually west of the other two. Swift's RA is in error by about 1 minute of time. This was noticed first by Herbert Howe who could not find N58, and suggested that Tempel's object, N47, is also the object seen by Swift. This, of course, makes it the "1st of 3," and suggests that Swift added the comments based on the positions in his list, rather than on his actual observations. ===== NGC 59 is one of the nebulae found by Ormond Stone with the 26-inch refractor at the Leander-McCormick Observatory in the mid-1880s. While most of the positions for these first nebulae found at LM are pretty poor, we have in this case (and about 190 others) a sketch to confirm the object in its surrounding star field. In addition, Stone has written the discovery date on the sketch cover sheet: November 10.4 1885. Bob Erdmann was curious about that "10.4": Was that really the date -- and time -- of the discovery? That set me to pondering, and this is what I eventually sent to Bob. The ".4" is indeed 4/10 of a day, or 9h 36m. I do not know if this is UT or local time, though. But I suspose we could work it out: I don't think they observed the thing at 9:36 in the morning, and since L-M is 6hr behind Greenwich, that would make local time at 10.4 UT something like 10.15 or 3:15+-AM local, which sort of makes sense for an observation of an object at RA = 0h 10m, -22d 03m (1890) in November. We can check that: Let's see ... on November 10, N59 crosses the meridian at about 3+ hours before midnight, so its hour angle at 3:15AM local time is about 3h25m which puts it pretty deep into the southwestern sky. Assuming they did not have a right-angle prism on the 26-inch, that would make for pretty comfortable observing, which at that time on a cool, fall night would be important. The LM observers wrote the RA and Dec on the cover sheets, too, providing an additional check on the identities. Finally, they gave us the page number and "book" number, probably an observing or log book, along with the power at which they observed the object. In this case, the power is 250, as it is for most of the observations. Some of the smaller and fainter nebulae, though, were observed at magnifications of up to 500. ===== NGC 61 is the brighter, southern component of a double galaxy found by WH. His description, "irregular figure," suggests that he might have glimpsed the fainter component to the north, too. The MCG position (copied into RNGC) is incorrect, ESGC (in RC3) is correct. ===== NGC 67 is the westernmost and faintest of at least seven nebulae found by LdR in what we now call the NGC 68 group. His fine sketch, published in his 1861 monograph, clearly shows that the object that most of us have been calling NGC 67A is, in fact, the object LdR sketched as one of the nebulae. The object we've been calling NGC 67 is shown on LdR's sketch as a star. So, I've reassigned NGC 67 to the correct galaxy to properly reflect the history. The other NGC objects in the group (N68, 69, 70, 71, 72, and 74) are brighter and have been correctly identified in the major catalogues. ===== NGC 68 is the brightest galaxy in a compact group. WH listed one of his fifth class ("large") nebulae here, so I think it likely that he saw the merged light of at least NGC 68, 70, and 71, the three brightest in the group. Several of the stars in the vicinity probably also added to the "object" that WH catalogued. LdR picked out seven of the nebulae here, and suspected at least two others. His sketch shows the seven, along with several stars, two of which turn out to be galaxies. See NGC 67, IC 1538, and IC 1539 for more on this group. ===== NGC 69. See NGC 67. ===== NGC 70 = IC 1539, which see. Also see NGC 67 and 68. ===== NGC 71. See NGC 67 and NGC 68. ===== NGC 72. See NGC 67. ===== NGC 74. See NGC 67. ===== NGC 78. This is usually taken as the northeastern of a close pair of galaxies, because that galaxy is brighter and has a higher surface brightness. However, I'd like to be sure that this is the case as the differences between the two galaxies are not large. I am hoping that Pechule's discovery paper will tell us which of the two nebulae he found, but am not hopeful -- nebulae were definitely not Pechule's main interest (see e.g. NGC 4239). In any event, we have not yet tracked down Pechule's paper (and Dreyer does not give us any more reference than Pechule's name), but it must have appeared between 1864 and 1879, the publication dates for the GC and the GC Supplement. The object is listed only in the Supplement. (Wolfgang is looking for the paper, too; November 2005). ===== NGC 81. Even though Bigourdan mistook the star northwest of the galaxy as NGC 81, Copeland's offsets from NGC 83 are very good and point unambiguously at the galaxy as the correct object. ===== NGC 82. Bigourdan's offsets just as unambiguously point to a star in this case as in his mistaken observation of a star for NGC 81. ===== NGC 83. See NGC 81. ===== NGC 84. As with Bigourdan's measurements of NGC 81 and 82, this, too, is a star, nailed exactly by those measurements. ===== NGC 85. I admit to caving in to the inevitable on this one. There is no problem with the NGC identification -- Copeland's offsets from NGC 83 are accurate, and just as accurately pin down the galaxy he measured. Similarly, Javelle's offsets from SAO 073902 are good and pin down IC 1546. The "A" and "B" suffixes for NGC 85 come from MCG, and confuse the simplicity of the history. I was tempted to ignore the suffixes altogether, but they have already been copied into the literature. So, I have to note that "N85B" is the same as IC 1546. ===== NGC 90, 91, and NGC 93. Dreyer has confused the observations of these objects. Lord Rosse's observations make it clear that he and his assistants saw only two nebulous objects here, so one of the "Ld R"'s has to be striken from the "Other Observers" column of the NGC. The offsets make it clear that the Irish observers saw what we now call NGC 90 and NGC 93. What do the observations of Schultz and d'Arrest have to say? Schultz's positions for all three objects -- not just one as the NGC credits -- precessed from the published equinox of 1865.0, agree to within two or three arcsec in all three cases with modern data from GSC. These pin down the three objects and show that NGC 91 is a star (Bigourdan also called the same star NGC 91 in his Observations). D'Arrest's positions are not quite as good, but fall within 20 arcsec of the galaxies. His descriptions of the locations and magnitudes of the nearby stars are also good, and confirm the identifications. So, NGC 90 should be credited to Lord Rosse, Schultz, and d'Arrest (rather than just Lord Rosse and Schultz), NGC 91 to Schultz alone (Lord Rosse and d'Arrest never commented on this star), and NGC 93 again to all three observers. To the description for NGC 90 should be added "* 13 sp." There are several other identification problems in the NGC 80/83 Group, too. See NGC 81, 82, and 84, as well as IC 1547. ===== NGC 91. See NGC 90. ===== NGC 93. See NGC 90. ===== NGC 110. Is this a true cluster, or just a part of the northern Milky Way that is randomly richer? JH found the grouping in late October 1831, and described it as "A very loose, pretty rich cluster; stars 9th to 12th magnitude; 9th magnitude star in the middle taken." Assuming that JH's position is correctly reduced and printed, the 9th magnitude star is GSC 4303-1643 at 00 24 29.38, +71 06 51.1 (I've adopted this position -- rounded off -- as the position of the cluster). Looking at the object on the POSS1 does not show much beyond a group of 50-60 stars scattered over an area about 20 arcmin across. Had this not been included in the Alter-Ruprecht catalogue, I suspect that it would have been one of the RNGC's "nonexistent" clusters. There is the possibility of a mistake in JH's single position, but I don't see any other grouping in the area that would fit his description as well. I think this is a candidate for visual observation. Note added in October 2003. Bob Erdmann and I examined the cluster a couple of weeks ago under good skies in Prescott, AZ with 8-inch and 16-inch telescopes. JH's description from the eyepiece is more appropriate than mine from the POSS. The "cluster" is just a bit more than a random scattering of 15-20 stars from the 9th to the 12th magnitudes in an area about 20 arcmin across. It doesn't stand out very well from the field, but we can still see why JH recorded it. ===== NGC 111. I cannot see anything within 5 degrees of Leavenworth's position that agrees with his description of a "vF, vS, R, lbM; * 8.5 p 36 sec, n 2 arcmin. RA doubtful." There is a very faint, peculiar pair of galaxies (MCG -01-02-013) at the approximate offsets he gives -- but the star is 10th or 11th magnitude, and his description of the galaxy does not match the relatively low surface brightness twisted streamers that contribute most of the light of the pair. There is no sketch included in Stone's papers at the University of Virginia. The galaxy may not be irretrieveably lost, however. Since the declinations in the first two Leander McCormick lists are generally (though not always!) reliable to within a couple of arcminutes, it may be possible to scan around the sky at Leavenworth's declination to find the object (see e.g. NGC 331). I haven't tried yet, however. ===== NGC 116 is the last of fourteen new nebulae found by Brother Ferrari at the College Romain during the winter of 1865-1866. They were announced by Father Secchi, and Dreyer incorrectly credits him with their discovery. See NGC 7667 for more information about Father Secchi, Brother Ferrari, and their nebulae. This particular nebula is unusual in the list in having a candidate galaxy nearby (about 15 arcmin north of the nominal position), MCG -01-02-017. There is another galaxy about eight arcmin southeast (MCG -01-02-018), closer to the nominal position, but fainter. Most of us take the brighter, northwestern galaxy, but given the poor position, even that is unsure. ===== NGC 120 is correctly described as being about 10 arcmin north of the comparison star in Tempel's original paper. However, as noted first by Bigourdan, the NGC position is about 5 arcmin off. This is apparently one of the positions that Tempel sent to Dreyer as a private communication since only the description is published. See NGC 122 and NGC 123 for a bit more. ===== NGC 122 and NGC 123 are probably stars. Tempel published only the sparce descriptions; the NGC positions are apparently among those that he sent directly to Dreyer. There is certainly nothing at these positions except a faint star in the case of NGC 122 (which Bigourdan measured). Ironically, I think that this star may be the northeast of Tempel's "nebulae," so that it would be NGC 123 and not NGC 122. NGC 122 may be the equally faint star about an arcminute southwest of Bigourdan's star. See NGC 123 for more. ===== NGC 123 is probably one of two 15th magnitude stars, both in GSC, near Tempel's positions (see NGC 122 for more on this) in roughly the correct relative positions. Since there are no nebulae anywhere in the area, I've tentatively identified these two stars with the objects he described. A brighter galaxy, NGC 120 (which see) is further on to the northwest, again in the correct relative position which Tempel described in his paper. Bigourdan measured this star, but gave it the number NGC 122; there is nothing at all at his one measured place for NGC 123. ===== NGC 135 = IC 26. There is no doubt about the identity of IC 26 -- Javelle's position agrees to within 2 arcsec of that measured on the DSS. The problem comes from Leavenworth's position for NGC 135. Like many of the positions in the two lists of new nebulae from Leander McCormick Observatory, that one is over a minute of time off in RA, though much closer in declination (less than 2 arcmin off). Herbert Howe went after the object around the turn of the century (19th to 20th) and said simply, "The position is 00h 26m 43s, -13d 53.3m [1900.0]." This agrees exactly with the position for IC 26. Leavenworth has left us a sketch that verifies Howe's object, so the identity is secure. It's interesting to note, too, that the cover sheet for the sketch has the RA given to a tenth of a minute (00h 24.8m), while the RA in the published paper is rounded off to 00h 25m. I won't even speculate on why this was done. ===== NGC 151 = NGC 153, which see. ===== NGC 153 = NGC 151. Swift found four nebulae on the night of 9 August 1886 (N163, N217, and N7774 as well as N153) -- all have RA's in his list that are 10 - 15 seconds of time too large, though his declinations are pretty good. As it happens, all but N7774 had been previously seen. Dreyer caught the identities for two of the nebulae (N163 and N217), but not for N153. So, the galaxy now has two NGC numbers. N153 is sometimes taken to be the star just northeast of the galaxy. But this can't be because Swift mentions that star in his description of the galaxy. ===== NGC 156 is probably the northern of the pair of stars, northwest of NGC 157, that Wolfgang and I have pointed to in the past. Tempel has mistaken several other single stars near galaxies as nebulous (see e.g. NGC 4315, NGC 4322, NGC 4768/9), and this is probably another. We can't tell for sure, though, as he has not measured this micrometrically, and his description is scanty: "Very small". The NGC tells us all that Tempel did in his brief note. ===== NGC 157. See NGC 7667 where this galaxy -- N157 -- figures in the Father Secchi mysteries. ===== NGC 158. Though this is 4 arcmin from the NGC position, this close double star is probably Tempel's object. It is northeast of NGC 157, and could probably be seen on a night of less-than-perfect seeing as nebulous. I'm a bit more confident of this one than I am of NGC 156, which see. ===== NGC 160 is not NGC 162, which see. ===== NGC 162 is a star about 75 arcsec northeast of NGC 160. It was initially found and measured by Schultz at Uppsala (he calls it "G.C. 80" in his tables and notes), though Lord Rosse also noted it at least twice. In addition, the star was thought to be nebulous on Heidelberg and Lick plates, though the Mt. Wilson astronomers -- not finding a nebula at the place -- hypothesized that N162 = N160. The small galaxy 2.7 arcminutes southeast of N160 has also been mistaken for NGC 162, once by yrs trly. Live and learn. Also see Dreyer's NGC note for N160. He had this all figured out in 1888. ===== NGC 163. See NGC 153. ===== NGC 171 = NGC 175. Dreyer (1912, WH's collected papers) tells us that CH made a 1 degree error while reducing the position of III 223. There is certainly nothing in the place given in NGC, though the identity with III 223 carries two question marks. Auwers has the correct declination in his published reduction of WH's observations. The spare number comes from GC. Unfortunately, JH has no note there telling us why he put the number in. However, in CGH, he notes the 1 degree difference in the polar distances between III 223 and h2334 (N175) while again putting a question mark on the number from his father's catalogue. Enough doubt apparently remained in his mind about the identity that he put two entries into GC, both of which Dreyer copied into the NGC. Dreyer checked back into WH's manuscripts while working on the Collected Papers, and found CH's error. ===== NGC 175 = NGC 171, which see. ===== NGC 178 = IC 39. The IC identity is not in doubt. Javelle's micrometric measurement reduces to within a few arcsec of the modern position. The NGC number, though, comes from one of Ormond Stone's Leander McCormick discoveries with its typically bad RA. Stone's declination is fortunately close, and his description "F, S, mE 0 deg, bM, faint wing sp" fits the galaxy perfectly. The "faint wing" is, in fact, one of the arms of this object. I wonder if this is a superposition of two galaxies, or an interacting system. Stone has left a sketch of his nebula -- my rather poor copy of it shows the "wing" faintly. Unfortunately, the sketch shows only the galaxy; no nearby stars are included, so the identity is not quite pinned down. At least the galaxy itself is oriented along the north-south axis of the sketch with the "wing" apparently stretching off towards the southwest. Herbert Howe found the galaxy 1min 37sec following Stone's position, so the corrected position made it into the IC2 Notes. Unfortunately, Dreyer did not notice that the object is the same as IC 39, so the identity of the two numbers was not published until one of the Helwan observers noticed it. ===== NGC 203 = NGC 211, which see. ===== NGC 211 = NGC 203. Stephan misidentified his comparison star as BD +2 92; his star is actually GSC 0014-1250, not in BD. Within his mean errors, Stephan's offsets, applied to the correct star, point exactly to NGC 203. This was later picked up by Copeland with LdR's 72-inch, and was correctly positioned by him. A star that I had earlier pegged as the possible object that Stephan saw is about 0.5 arcmin south-southeast of Stephan's incorrect position used in NGC. Though I've not reduced Bigourdan's two measurements of "NGC 211," I suspect they refer to this same star. ===== NGC 213. See IC 1572. ===== NGC 217. See NGC 153. ===== NGC 219. See IC 44. ===== NGC 223 = IC 44, which see. ===== NGC 241 is probably identical with NGC 242. There is no doubt as to the identity of NGC 242 -- it is a compact double cluster in the SMC at the NGC position, faithfully copied from GC and CGH. However, the identity of NGC 241 is not as clear. The NGC puts it within an arcminute northwest of NGC 242 which suggests it might be identical to it -- or, just possibly, one of the two clusters making up the identified object (as e.g. ESO has it). However, Brent points out in "Star Clusters" that JH's NPD for NGC 241 in CGH is 10 arcmin larger than (hence southwards of) the NGC position. He also seems convinced that the large, scattered group of stars there is JH's object. (See Brent's note for more on his interpretation of the field.) I don't think that this is correct. JH calls NGC 241 "A vF, R nebula or group." He adds, in parentheses, "(We are now fairly in the Nubecula Minor, and the field begins to be full of a faint perfectly irresolvable nebulous light)," and makes the position 00 37 05.1, 164 31 32 for 1830. This is not a description of a scattered cluster, but of a small nebula, perhaps involving others nearby. In addition, JH has only one observation of NGC 241 in Sweep 482, while he has three observations of NGC 242 in Sweeps 441, 625, and 738. Why did he apparently not record NGC 242 in Sweep 482? Even if the NPD of NGC 241 is wrong, the description makes it sound like a fourth observation of NGC 242. Here are JH's notes from the three sweeps, followed by his 1830 positions: Sweep 441: "pL; vF; R; vgbM; (in a sweep below the pole and ill seen) the RA is probably also in error." 00 37 13.7:, 164 21 50. Sweep 625: "A binuclear nebula, or two, vS, R, running together." 00 37 07.2, 164 22 22. Sweep 738: "A small irresolvable knot in the bright part of Nubec. Min." 00 37 09.9, 164 22 18. All of these, including the observation leading to NGC 241, sound to me like different descriptions of the same object, seen under slightly different observing conditions. The positions, aside from the RA noted as poor, and the NPD error (if it is indeed one), are accordant to within JH's usual observational error. So, I suggest again that the objects are identical, and the separate entries in GC (and NGC, of course), may reflect JH's belief that the one observation of NGC 241 may in fact refer to one of the two "nebulae" making up NGC 242. At the same time, he corrected the NPD by 10 arcmin to place the object near its companion. (See NGC 1649 = NGC 1652 for another very similar case.) A stretch? Sure. But so, in my opinion, is Brent's hypothesis. Unfortunately, we have to leave this case here, unresolved. JH has no note in GC about the two objects, so we do not know if he deliberately changed the NPD of NGC 241, or if that was -- as Brent has argued -- a transcription error from CGH. I've put queries on the entries for NGC 241 to reflect all this. ===== NGC 242 is probably also NGC 241, which see. ===== NGC 250. Swift's position is over 4 arcmin to the east of the galaxy. But his description of the galaxy, "eF, vS, R; in center of 3 sts in form of a right triangle" is exact and points us to the correct object. ===== NGC 252, NGC 258, and NGC 260. Lord Rosse described this field differently on different nights. On 22 Dec 1848, the three objects appeared to be in a line; on 23 Oct 1856, they formed a triangle. He has two sketches, one showing the line, the second the triangle. Since the second has no field stars shown, it's difficult to determine the orientation. My guess, however, is that the third "nebula" shown there is a faint star about 2 arcmin south of the NGC position of N258. On the sky, the three objects are in a line. This is the orientation that Dreyer adopted, and the NGC positions are relatively accurate. ===== NGC 258. See NGC 252. ===== NGC 260. See NGC 252. ===== NGC 276 = IC 1591. There is no doubt about which galaxy the IC number belongs to -- Stewart has it well-placed and perfectly described from a Harvard plate. N276, however, is one of the Leander-McCormick nebulae first found by Muller, and published with a very poor position. Muller's description, however, is as detailed and as accurate as Stewart's. Herbert Howe found the galaxy 1 minute 13 seconds following Muller's position with the bright star north-northeast just as Muller had it. Unfortunately, Dreyer did not catch the connection to IC 1591 when he wrote the IC2 note, so the object now has two numbers. ===== NGC 281 = IC 11, which see. Also see IC 1590. ===== NGC 295 is lost. This object was found by Copeland with LdR's 72-inch reflector while he was examining what he thought was NGC 296. His description of the field is precise: "[NGC 296] F, R, *10m (yellow) Pos 29.6 deg, Dist 123.1 arcsec. Nova [NGC 295], S, R, and with a * or another neb 10 arcsec n. Pos from [296] 242.0 deg, Dist 314.6 arcsec or 21.6 seconds p, 147.6 arcsec s." Unfortunately, this configuration of objects is nowhere to be found near NGC 296 (which see for more). I've searched the POSS1 +30 deg 00h 52m field, but could find no galaxies with neighboring stars as Copeland describes. Perhaps a search of the adjacent fields would turn up something. ===== NGC 296. WH's position is about 20 seconds too large and an arcmin too far north. That alone would not have caused people to miss the identification with the brightest galaxy in a group of five. What caused the problem was NGC 295 (which see). Copeland misidentified the field with N296, found a second object near it, and Dreyer put that into NGC as N295. Unfortunately, with WH's position being off, the nominal position of N295 is very close to the actual position for N296. Hence, the confusion. The description in NGC is an "average" of WH's and Copeland's for the galaxy he thought was N296. WH's original description "F, E, preceding a B star", is closer, but the GC description (apparently taken from one of his father's observing logs by JH) is even better: "F, E, a B* f, vnr." Just about everyone has the wrong identification for this, but the correct one is not in doubt. Malcolm found this one, too. Good catch! ===== NGC 297 is an extremely faint companion to NGC 298. Both were found by Albert Marth with Lassell's 48-inch reflector during one of their Malta stays. When I first went over the field for ESGC, I found it hard to believe that such a faint galaxy could be seen visually. However, more experience in looking at some of the other objects Marth found has convinced me that he could indeed have picked this one up, especially since the brighter galaxy would have already caught his attention. In earlier versions of the position table, I suggested that N297 might be the double star at 00 52 29.6, -07 37 50 (B1950; HCo), but that is unlikely as the relative position of the two galaxies as given by Marth is very good. The double is almost straight south of N298, putting it about an arcmin off Marth's relative offset from N298. ===== NGC 298. See NGC 297. ===== NGC 301. See NGC 302. ===== NGC 302 is a probably the star 1.8 arcmin east-northeast of NGC 301. The pair was found by Frank Muller, and has a typically poor RA in the first list of nebulae from Leander McCormick. The declinations, though, seem to be close. Though there is no sketch, the objects can be tentatively identified by Muller's comment "* 8 p 30 seconds" in the description of NGC 301. There are, in fact, two stars of about 8th magnitude roughly 30 seconds preceding the galaxy. The northern star is slightly closer than 30 seconds, the southern is slightly further. It's possible that neither is the correct star, but this is the only configuration in the area that fits Muller's note. In any event, there is no object at his given offset from the galaxy (his note reads "Neb? f ([No.] 18 [in the first list = N301]), P 75 deg, dist 1.0 [arcmin]." The actual distance is 1.8 arcmin, though the position angle is about right. Unfortunately, 20th century versions of my position lists pointed to the wrong object as N302 (the faint star or compact galaxy 0.3 southeast of N301). The first 21st century version finally got the right star -- assuming, of course, that it is the object Muller saw. ===== NGC 305 is a small asterism of six or eight stars at JH's discovery position; his description, "A small cluster of p closely scattered stars" confirms the identification. RNGC incorrectly placed the NGC number on a nearby CGCG galaxy. Unfortunately, PGC followed RNGC, so this number crept into RC3 as well. Sigh. The position depends a bit on exactly which stars are taken as members of the asterism. Tom DeMary includes a few more than caught my eye at first, so his position is about an arcminute different. But the identification as an asterism is not in doubt. ===== NGC 307. See NGC 308. ===== NGC 308 and NGC 310 are both stars. [All this is from a letter to Malcolm Thomson; it's all a bit wordy, but I've saved it like this since it has a few details in it about my pre-DSS working methods.] Since Lord Rosse measured the positions of NGC 308 and 310 in relation to NGC 307, I decided to do the same. Using a comparator with a millimeter scale and an "angle fan" scale, I measured the distances and position angles of objects surrounding NGC 307 on the Palomar Sky Survey print. Since the scale of the paper prints is different in the x and y directions by about 0.9%, the measurements are liable to be a bit off from what would be measured on a glass plate. Estimating the center of NGC 307 was also a problem, and the resulting errors probably swamped the print scale problem. Nevertheless, the measurements are adequate to unambiguously identify the objects in question. So, here is a table of the objects identified and measured by Lord Rosse and myself. I've also included [Malcolm Thomson's] measurement of the galaxy that the RNGC calls NGC 310. Object Observer PA Dist Date Notes (deg) (arcsec) GC 5126 Ld. R. 147 60 31 Dec 1866 Measure obviously approximate = N308 Ld. R. 149.7 52 23 Oct 1876 Mean of two measures = star HC 150+- 52 14 Jul 1989 PA approx GC 5128 Ld. R. 81 225 31 Dec 1866 "Another neb. susp. near." = N310 Ld. R. 84.8 239 23 Oct 1876 One measure only = star HC 84 231 14 Jul 1989 --- HC -- --- 25 Oct 1983 "Both novae are stars." eF nova Ld. R. ssf 3-4 min 8 Nov 1866 Estimated position Stars HC (same) (same) 14 Jul 1989 "Only stars here" Star Ld. R. 199 225 31 Dec 1866 Ld. R. 201.6 240.1 23 Oct 1876 "* 11m. sp [GC] 172" HC 201 235 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch Star Ld. R. 0+- 3.25min 23 Oct 1876 "* 11.12m, 3.25min exactly north of [GC] 172." HC 357 170 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch Gal B HC 91 303 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch MT 90+- 4min Jun 1989? Gal C HC 215 185 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch Gal "D" HC 338 92 14 Jul 1989 On [Thomson's] sketch, unlabeled That's all the observations there are, aside from the modern work on NGC 307 (photometry, spectroscopy, etc.). Dreyer's NGC positions (and the offsets from NGC 307) are derived from Lord Rosse's measurements, so don't give us any new data. As you can see, my measurements agree (within the errors, a few arc seconds, and about 2 deg in PA) exactly with Lord Rosse's, and pinpoint the two stars as the "nebulae" that he found. Adding to my conviction that this must be correct is the fact that the galaxies C and D are approximately the same brightness as B, yet Lord Rosse mentions neither, in spite of the fact that he noticed the star further to the north of D and NGC 307. I also suspect that [Thomson] is correct that the "...2st., 13.14 m. sf" Lord Rosse's "...similar object, more stellar" seen during the 1876 observation are probably the two that [Thomson] mentioned, but that he (LdR) again missed the real nebula (B). There is a faint possibility that Lord Rosse actually saw the nucleus of B and just one of the sf stars, but this would need confirmation. I think he also may have glimpsed the faint star very close sff NGC 307 on 8 Nov 1866: "...on the p side is either a * close or some other appearance different to the f. side." However, since there is no star on the western side that I can see on the print, it is only the "some other appearance to the f. side" that offers evidence of this, so I wouldn't want to push this. In sum, I have no choice but to stand by my original conclusion that both NGC 308 and 310 are stars mistaken for nebulae. The agreement in the distances and position angles from NGC 307 allows no other conclusion. ===== NGC 310. See NGC 308. ===== NGC 311. See NGC 313. ===== NGC 313 is a triple star (the third star is very close to the northern of the brighter two) about an arcminute north west of NGC 315. Lord Rosse observed the group (NGC 311 and NGC 318 are the other two bona fide galaxies in it) on six different nights, and saw the triple as nebulous on all but one night when he noted it as a double star (his sketch was apparently made on that night as it shows N313 as a double star). His micrometric offsets from N315 on three nights point exactly to the triple. The southern star is just bright enough that it was picked up in GSC. The position I've adopted is midway between this and the image of the northern two stars. ===== NGC 315. See NGC 313, NGC 316, and NGC 318. ===== NGC 316 is a single star 45 arcsec east of NGC 315. Lord Rosse has four micrometric measurements of it, all referred to N315, so there is no confusion as to which object he was looking at. ===== NGC 318. Even though Lord Rosse saw this on just one of the six nights on which he observed the group around NGC 315, it is nevertheless correctly placed in his diagram, and is correctly described by him. The NGC position is pretty good. ===== NGC 321. The mess with this number is partly my fault. While working on RC2, I noticed that there is nothing at the (incorrect) RC1 position of "A0055." However, MCG -01-03-041 is just one degree south and 0.1 minute east of the RC1 position. I immediately jumped at this, and followed MCG in misidentifying the galaxy as N321. Early versions of ESGC perpetuate the error. However, the real NGC 321 is actually MCG -01-03-043 (which MCG calls N325, but that is MCG -01-03-45; are we confused yet?!). It was found by Marth in August or September of 1864, and is the first -- and faintest -- of four. The others are NGC 325 = MCG -01-03-045, N327 = MCG -01-03-047, and N329 = MCG -01-03-048. Marth's positions are very good, and his brief descriptions are appropriate. Even so, MCG managed to misidentify the first two of the four. By the way: the galaxy called "A0055" in RC1 is MCG -01-03-041 (I got the correct object, but put the wrong name on it). This object is the parent galaxy of SN 1939D, discovered by Zwicky (see Harvard Announcement Card #518), and included in his sample in ApJ 96, 28, 1942. He gives a relatively coarse position (00h 54m, -05d 20m; labeled "1938.0" in the ApJ paper, but "1939.0" in the HAC) which is nevertheless good enough to pinpoint MCG -01-03-041 as the correct galaxy. He notes the type as "Sb" in ApJ; he classified it on the 18-inch Schmidt film on which the supernova was found. ESGC calls it "SB(r)c pec" from a glass copy of the 48-inch POSS1 plate, in pretty good agreement. Zwicky also says in the HAC, "The spiral in which [the supernova] appears belongs to a small group of nebulae including N321, N325, N327, [and] N329 at the estimated distance of 7 million parsecs." Thus, the galaxy cannot be N321, so we can take his position as correct and pointing at MCG -01-03-041. (MCG -01-03-042 = Mark 966 is 4.0 arcmin on to the northeast, and is compact and overexposed on the POSS1, showing little trace of spiral structure; it would have been nearly stellar on the 18-inch films.) ===== NGC 324. John Herschel's observation reads: "F; S; Stellar; the bad definition of a south-easter prevents certainty, but I think it is not a star." His position (precessed to 1950.0): 00 54 55 -40 43.2. There is nothing here, but just 30 arcmin south at 00 54 56 -41 13.8 is a galaxy that agrees with Herschel's description, and was taken by ESO and RC3 as N324. I1609 (chosen by RNGC) at 00 57 28 -40 36.1 is also a possibility, but there is no easy digit error in the position that could account for Herschel's position. Therefore, I'm pretty sure that there is simply a 30 arcmin error in Herschel's position. ===== NGC 325 is MCG -01-03-045, not MCG -01-03-043. See NGC 321 for more. ===== NGC 327. See NGC 321. ===== NGC 329. See NGC 321. ===== NGC 331 may be MCG -01-03-012 which is 11m 30s west of the very rough position given by Leavenworth, who notes the RA as "doubtful." If we make a -10 minute correction to the RA, that places Leavenworth's nebula 1m 30s east of the MCG object. This is within the errors of being at the +2 minute systematic offset that many of the Leander McCormick nebulae show in their RAs. The declinations are usually within an arcminute, and there is a star (somewhat fainter than Leavenworth's rough estimate of 12th mag) three arcmin northeast of the galaxy. Since there is no other reasonable candidate object in the area, I've tentatively adopted the identification. There is apparently no extant sketch. Another suggested identification for N331 is MCG -01-03-039. But this has a very bright star just 5 arcmin west-northwest. Leavenworth would almost certainly have mentioned this, but does not. So, I think that is a less likely candidate than MCG -01-03-012, even though it is closer to the nominal position. ===== NGC 333. See IC 1604. ===== NGC 336 is not, as I supposed earlier, a double star. Thanks to the efforts of Doug Wereb, Bob Bunge, and Brent Archinal, I have a notebook full of copies of the discovery sketches of about a third of the nebulae found at Leander McCormick. These are apparently all the sketches that still exist, and may be all there ever were. In any event, NGC 336 is included among these sketches. It is shown as a small, faint, circular nebula in a field including 3 stars. Fairly close to the (very inaccurate) L-M position is ESO 541-IG002, a faint, peculiar galaxy, perhaps a colliding pair, with the three stars shown in the correct relative positions. The objects suggested as NGC 336 by ESO and RNGC do not have stars nearby matching those in the sketch. Thus, they cannot be NGC 336. ===== NGC 339 is a globular (or rich open) cluster in the SMC. Its core is a bit eccentric, being displaced about 10 arcsec to the northwest from the center of the outer isophotes. Thus, the positions do not agree as well as might be expected from the cluster's relatively small apparent size. This is a feature shared by many clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. In general, the positions I've adopted for the NGC and IC objects are meant to be representative of the object as seen by the discoverer. Where the "feature" becomes a problem, I've explicitely named the part of the object to which the position applies. Thus, N339 has positions for its "core" as well as the "entire cluster." Finally, I have classified the SMC and LMC clusters purely on morphological grounds. Thus, N339 is a "globular" cluster because of its richness, compactness, and relative symmetry. An H-R diagram might tell a different story. Folks interested in the astrophysics of these things will do well to consult the literature to be sure about the classification of any given object. ===== NGC 343 and NGC 344 are a pair of faint galaxies superimposed on the western outskirts of a poor cluster of galaxies. Muller's position is about 4 minutes of time too far west -- the same direction, though about twice as far, as many other Leander McCormick objects are from their true positions -- but his declination is good, and his descriptions are appropriate. The galaxy and star taken as this pair in ESO are too far apart to match Muller's relative positions, the star is too bright, and the galaxy has too low a surface brightness and too faint a nucleus to warrant Muller's notation "sbMN." RNGC also incorrectly picked this galaxy as NGC 344, and ESO may have been following their lead. ===== NGC 344. See NGC 343. ===== NGC 347. This is one of a group of six nebulae found by Albert Marth. There are other fainter nebulae in the area, but Marth has picked out the six brightest. In particular, RNGC got a somewhat larger, but fainter, galaxy about 4 arcmin to the south. This is a spiral with low surface brightness arms, but with a bright nucleus. It is not large enough to have made it into ESGC. I would guess that only the nucleus would be visible at the eyepiece, and the proximity to the 7th magnitude SAO 129088 would make it even harder to spot. The real NGC 347, which I picked up for ESGC, looks like a pair of interacting ellipticals close to Marth's position (however, it could well be simply a peculiar S0 with a dust lane, so I've retained just the single entry in ESGC). The total magnitude is about the same as the RNGC object, but since this has a much higher average surface brightness, it is more likely to be seen visually. A couple of additional comments: Marth's positions are so good here actually surprised me a bit. His positions have not impressed me in other areas of the sky (e.g. NGC 1474 and the other galaxies found that same night -- five out of the ten are more than 5 arcmin off the true positions). But in this area, the positions do seem to be pretty good, so I followed them for the identifications. Bigourdan's observation of NGC 347 may also be relevant. He observed it only once (on 21 Nov 1889), but did not measure its position. His description points clearly to the correct object, however: "I suspect an exceedingly faint object which could be nebulous, and which is situated toward [PA =] 3 deg , d = 4 arcmin, with respect to BD -7 159." This is just where Marth's position places NGC 347, another indication that this really is the object which Marth saw. ===== NGC 370. Is this NGC 372 (which see)? D'Arrest's description reads (translated from the Latin by me using a Latin-English dictionary -- keep in mind that I can't even read my own PhD diploma!), "Faint and diffuse, nucleus not condensed, * 13mag 15 arcsec s." There is nothing at his position (accurately transcribed into the NGC), but just 9 seconds of time east, and about 1 arcmin north is NGC 372 (which see), a triple star. On a night of bad seeing, I suspect that N372 might indeed match d'Arrest's description, though the 13th magnitude star -- which is 10.1 arcsec from the other two in the triplet -- is east-northeast, not south. Thus, it could well be that d'A's object is really just the western two stars of the triplet, rather than all three. d'A's position is also well off; other nebulae in the group that he measured the same night (7 Oct 1861) are close to his positions. So, I remain skeptical, and there are question marks on this number in the table. ===== NGC 372. This is a triple star west of the NGC 383 galaxy group. It was found the night of 12 Dec 1876 by Lord Rosse or his observing assistant at the time (Dreyer). The measured PA and distance from a star near the middle of the galaxy group unambiguously identifies the object, as does the note in its description about another 12th magnitude star at PA 166.5 deg with a distance of 74.0 arcsec. The description itself is telling: "The last nova looks at first sight like a hazy *, the higher power seems to resolve it, at all events sev. luminous points were seen." The south-western two of the stars may also be d'Arrest's object (NGC 370, which see); if so, he's been rather careless about it. ===== NGC 377 is positively identified as MCG -04-03-053 by Leavenworth's sketch and description. His position is well off the mark, of course, so both ESO and SGC missed the identification. ===== NGC 383. See NGC 372. ===== NGC 390 is a star. Bigourdan's offsets point exactly to a star at 01 05 08.6 +32 09 58 (B1950.0, reduced using the GSC coordinates for Bigourdan's comparison star), and his description "vF, stellar" is that which he gives to almost all of the stars which he mistook for nebulae. ===== NGC 396. RNGC places this object more than a degree away from Marth's position. Yet just 5 seconds of time east of the original position is a faint galaxy that Marth could well have seen with the 48-inch reflector. Unfortunately, Marth rarely mentions stars near his nebulae; had he done so in this case, the identity would have been clinched as there is a star just 10 or 12 arcsec northeast of the nucleus of the galaxy. Other than that, however, I see no reason not to identify this galaxy as N396. The GSC position is likely a blend of the galaxy and the star, and thus a few arcsec northeast of the true place. However, my own measurement puts the position a few arcsec north of the GSC position, so perhaps the GSC is OK. There is also a faint double star at 01 05 20 +04 15.7. I doubt that this is the object that Marth saw, but it could be. Still, I'll stick with the faint galaxy. ===== NGC 399. See NGC 400. ===== NGC 400, 401, and 402 are stars at Lord Rosse's measured offsets from NGC 403 and from a nearby star (his distance of N401 from N403 is an estimate, slightly too large). His fourth nova, NGC 399, is a galaxy, also at his measured offset. He also has a sketch showing N403, five nearby stars, and N400 and N401, all in their correct relative positions. ===== NGC 401 is a star. See NGC 400 for a discussion. ===== NGC 402 is a star. See NGC 400 for a discussion. ===== NGC 403. See NGC 400. ===== NGC 404. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 405 is a double star. It was found by John Herschel and is h2380 in his Cape Observations. He has this to say about it: `[RA] 01 00 45.1: [NPD] 137 35 13 (1830.0). A star 7m? After a long and obstinate examination with all powers and apertures, I cannot bring it to a sharp disc and leave it, in doubt whether it be a star or not. The star B 137 immediately preceding offered no such difficulty, giving a good disc with 320. [JH's italics:] No doubt a "Stellar Nebula."' I noted earlier, "JH's object is clearly a double star on the Southern Sky Survey (was it closer together in JH's time?), and I put it in the SGC Notes as such." However, on the DSS image, the two stars are not resolved. SIMBAD has the separation as 1.2 arcsec at 191 degrees (measured in 1954), and has another fainter star (component "C") at 47.5 arcsec and 81 degrees in 1913. That fainter star is partially covered by the diffraction spike on the Schmidt plate. In any event, we now know why JH could not bring the star to a "sharp disk". ===== NGC 407. See NGC 408. ===== NGC 408, Schultz's "Nova III," is a star at his carefully measured position. It is just 8 seconds west of NGC 410 = H II 220, which Schultz also measured. Note that he has reversed the names of "Nova III" and H II 219 = NGC 407 in his 1875 MN paper. Dreyer has sorted them out for the NGC, however. Schultz's other discovery ("Nova IV" = NGC 414) in the area, is a peculiar interacting galaxy. His position for it is excellent, as are those for NGC 407 and NGC 410. ===== NGC 410. See NGC 408. ===== NGC 412. Leavenworth has left us a sketch of this nebula, as well as the usual poor position and brief description. Unfortunately, his sketch shows only one star in the field, about 5 arcmin southwest of the nebula, so the field will not be easy to recognize. The sketch is one of the few to have the orientation marked, so that is not a problem here as it is with some of the LM nebulae. In fact, I can't find Leavenworth's object anywhere near his position. Nor are there any other nebula/star pairs within several degrees of that position that match the sketch, either. The galaxy chosen by ESO, 3.8 minutes preceding and 19 arcmin south of Leavenworth's position does not match the sketch, so that cannot be the object, either. Leavenworth added a note "Neb?" to his description, so it is possible that the object is simply a star. However, I could not even find two stars in the correct relative orientation in the area that would match the sketch. The sketch is dated 15 Oct 1885. Leavenworth made at least four other sketches that same night. They are of N377, N540, N635, and N842 (all of which see). Of these, N540's identification is unsure, and N635 is three degrees south of its nominal position. Assuming all four identities, though, the average offset of Leavenworth's positions in RA is +25.3 seconds of time with a mean error of +-32.2 seconds, and a standard deviation in one observation of +-64.5 seconds (all are at roughly the same declination, so the conversion to arcseconds can be ignored given the size of these numbers). In Dec, the equivalent numbers are -5.3 arcmin, +-4.2 arcmin, and +-8.4 arcmin. Given offsets and errors of this size, and the three-degree accidental error for N635, NGC 412 could be ANYwhere within several degrees of Leavenworth's nominal position. But I still can't find it. So, unless other folks want to spend more time on the field, NGC 412 is probably irretrieveably lost. ===== NGC 414. See NGC 408. ===== NGC 420. See NGC 421. ===== NGC 421 may be one of the several faint stars or wide double stars west of NGC 420. WH found the objects on 12 Sept 1784, describing them as "Two. Both eF, vS. The following is the largest." The field was examined again by JH, LdR, d'Arrest, and Bigourdan, none of whom found NGC 421, but all of whom placed NGC 420 within 5 seconds of time of WH's position for the pair. Dreyer has a curious statement in his note in the Scientific Papers (1912). Citing the observers above as having "... seen only one nebula," he goes on with "no doubt the following one." Yet all the observers have assigned the preceding number (H III 154 = N420) to the object. Dreyer himself followed JH's lead in this, giving the earlier number to the object that JH, d'A, and LdR all saw. In any case, there is no nebula in the area that might be N421. Since assigning the number to one of the stellar objects mentioned above is pure speculation, I'm not going to do it. Thus, N421 is "Not found." ===== NGC 443 = IC 1653. D'Arrest has a single observation of the galaxy from the night of 8 October 1861. He published it in AN 1500, and again in his big monograph. The declination is 0.5 arcmin greater in the monograph, but it is still nine arcmin too small. I suspect a digit error in the arcminute 10's place. With that, the position would be within an arcmin or so of the true position. D'A's note about the 15th magnitude star 8.3 seconds of time preceding the galaxy is correct -- the actual distance is 7.9 seconds. Javelle rediscovered the galaxy over 40 years later in 1903. His micrometric observation, re-reduced with respect to a modern position for his comparison star, is within a couple of arcseconds of the modern positions. ===== NGC 444 = IC 1658. Lord Rosse discovered NGC 444, observing it on four separate nights. He placed it roughly five arcmin west of NGC 452, but did not make any micrometric measurements of it. The NGC position is probably from Dreyer himself, and is about 30 seconds west of the actual position. The identity is secure, however -- the galaxy and surrounding star field are exactly described by LdR and his observers. Javelle's position for IC 1658 is within a few arcsec of the GSC position, so the identity of this object is also secure. Javelle's comparison star, BD +30 192, is, not coincidentally (it is the brightest star in the area), mentioned by Lord Rosse who notes that NGC 444 is about twice as far from NGC 452 as the star. ===== NGC 446 = IC 89. Found by Marth in 1864, this is one of his objects that he "verified" -- that is, reobserved. Nevertheless, his RA (and therefore, the NGC's) is just one minute of time off the true position. This is probably a transcription or typographical error. The declination is within an arcminute of being correct, however. IC 89 has a good micrometrically measured position in IC1 from Javelle's first list. RNGC has suggested that UGC 794 is NGC 446. That galaxy, though, is considerably fainter than the real N446, and its position is off by odd amounts from Marth's: 13 seconds of time, and 7 arcminutes. That identity is therefore unlikely. ===== NGC 447 = IC 1656. This is misnamed "NGC 449" in CGCG, and that has unfortunately carried over into several other catalogues. The galaxy was found by d'Arrest who observed it on four different nights, each time measuring its position with a micrometer. His position is good, as is his description, especially concerning an 11th magnitude star 9.2 seconds of time east and 110 arcseconds north of the nebula -- the star is there, so the identification is secure. IC 1656 was found about 40 years later by Barnard. Since this is one of the nebulae which he "published" in a private communication to Dreyer, we have only the position and description in the second IC to guide us. His RA is good, but the declination is about 1.4 arcmin north of the galaxy. His description is similarly confused, "Neb, S * close sf, *9 sf 3 arcmin." The "S * close sf" is indeed superposed on the southeastern edge side of the galaxy (the GSC position is a blend of this and the galaxy), but the "* 9 sf 3 arcmin" is actually northwest by three minutes. It is the same star that d'Arrest called 11th magnitude. Still, the are no other galaxies in the area with quite that arrangement of stars around them, so Barnard's object is certainly the same one that d'Arrest had seen earlier. See NGC 451 = IC 1661 for more about Barnard's observations in the area. ===== NGC 449. Mislabeled "NGC 447" in CGCG, this galaxy (Markarian 1) has had its incorrect name unfortunately carried over into several other catalogues. There is, however, no doubt as to the correct number as the NGC position (from a micrometric measurement by Stephan) is within a few arcsec of the GSC position. This is the first of three new "nebulae" in the area that Stephan found late in 1881 using the large refractor at Marseille. The other two are NGC 451 and NGC 453, both of which see for more information. ===== NGC 451 = IC 1661, and is another of Barnard's IC discoveries sent directly to Dreyer (Stephan discovered the object, and his observation led to the NGC entry). It is also the second of two nebulae which Barnard found in the area. Like the first (NGC 447, which see), there is possible confusion about its identification. In this case, Barnard's description is sparce, "eF, S, R" and his position has the RA of NGC 451, but is closer in declination to NGC 449. Two things convince me that Barnard reobserved NGC 451 (which is just where Stephan measured it to be): 1) this galaxy is brighter than N449 by at least a magnitude, and it is larger, too. 2) Barnard's declination is about 1.2 arcmin north of the true place of NGC 451, just as his declination of N447 is about 1.4 arcmin north of that galaxy. If he observed both objects on the same night, as seems likely, then the offset will be systematic. Since we know the identification of N447 = I1656 is solid, it follows that N451 must be I1661. ===== NGC 452. See NGC 444. ===== NGC 453 is a linear triple star found by Stephan. The stars are exactly where Stephan measured them to be, and his description mentions "one or two" vF stars involved. On a night of less than perfect seeing, the three stars must indeed resemble a faint nebula laced with even fainter stars. ===== NGC 456. See NGC 460. ===== NGC 460 is the second of at least three HII regions/stellar associations in the SMC. JH's position coincides with a bright knot on the southern edge of a nebulous mass with several bright stars nearby. I've taken this as the object that JH saw. About 2 arcmin southeast is another double-lobed nebula involved with many stars. JH does not have any entry in his CGH list that corresponds to this, though it should have been bright enough for him to pick out. Other objects in the area that he saw include NGC 456 (similar to N460, but larger), NGC 465 (a stellar association without nebulosity), and h2398 (not in the NGC) which JH places 2 minutes of time west of NGC 460 where there are no nebulae or clusters he could have seen. His description makes it sound like it is NGC 460, but it could be NGC 456 with a one minute error. Here is what he had to say about it: "Chief centre of condensation at southern edge of an irreg[ularly-] figured nebulous mass 2' diameter." Since he saw this in one of the same sweeps in which he picked up NGC 460, I'm inclined to believe that this is NGC 456 with a one-minute error in the RA. ===== NGC 464 is actually a triple star, though I noted it earlier as a double. The northwestern component is a blended double on the DSS image. Here is the historical note. Though credited to Tempel (in his fifth list of observations of nebulae), it was actually found by the BD observers as they swept the field. Tempel has only this to say about it: "Im Atlas vom Argelander einen kleinen neuen Nebel verzeichnet in: 01 11 25, +34 12" [In Argelander's Atlas, there is a small, new nebula plotted at ...]. Since the BD was made with a 78-mm refractor, Argelander's observer could not have seen the faint galaxy fingered by RNGC. ===== NGC 465. See NGC 460. ===== NGC 468 = IC 92, which see. ===== NGC 469. See NGC 475. ===== NGC 471. See NGC 475. ===== NGC 475 = IC 97. Marth discovered three galaxies here (NGC 469, 471, and 475), and his positions are pretty good. Two of his positions got changed for the NGC, however -- for the worse. Dreyer credits Peters for N475 as well as Marth, and it is apparently Peters's position which throws off the NGC. Marth's original position is within a minute of Bigourdan's measured place for IC 97, so the identity is certain. The object which Bigourdan calls N475 is a star near the incorrect NGC position. ===== NGC 480. The identification is not sure since there is no sketch of the object and its field. Nevertheless, the faint galaxy I've assigned the number to is not too far from Leavenworth's position, and matches his description. ===== NGC 483. See NGC 499. ===== NGC 486, about 5 arcmin north-northwest of NGC 488, is a compact galaxy with a faint star superposed on its eastern side. LdR's sketch is accurate, as are his offsets. ===== NGC 488. See NGC 486. ===== NGC 490. See NGC 492. ===== NGC 492 has a somewhat fainter companion about an arcmin southwest. LdR does not mention two objects here, and his micrometric offset of N492 from N490 is exactly on the brighter object, so there is no possible confusion of identities here. ===== NGC 498 is the object labeled "D" in the first two of LdR's diagrams of the group around NGC 499. Though he has no measured offsets for it, he clearly saw it the second night: "vvF, but certain" and the diagrams leave no doubt as to the correct object. ===== NGC 499 = IC 1686 is the brightest of a moderately compact group of galaxies in a cluster of which NGC 507 is the dominant member. It, with six others in the cluster, was found by WH. JH reobserved five of the six, but mislabeled a "nova" (NGC 483) as the first of his father's objects (d'Arrest makes the same mistake). Lord Rosse has observations on 8 different nights, and -- with the exception of NGC 483 in the first observation -- got the identifications correct. Schultz also got the correct objects, and Dreyer sorted the field out well for the NGC. Javelle swept over the field late in 1899, finding and measuring a dozen objects in the area that he took to be previously uncatalogued. However, his accurate position and exact description of one of those "novae" points directly at NGC 499 -- in spite of the fact that he has a footnote on the object saying that "NGC 499 was also measured." He has clearly misidentified the object in the crowded field. Since he unfortunately does not publish his measurements of the NGC objects, we cannot now be sure just which galaxy he mistook for NGC 499. Dreyer did not catch Javelle's error (Javelle's absolute declination is about 1.7 arcmin off since he used the BD position, also 1.7 arcmin off, for his comparison star), so the galaxy now carries the IC, as well as the NGC, number. ===== NGC 506 is a star just over an arcmin southwest of NGC 507. It was seen and its offsets measured on one night by LdR. The offsets are good and the identity is sure. ===== NGC 507 is the brightest of a relatively poor, though nearby cluster of galaxies. There are several notes about the area; see e.g. NGC 499 = IC 1686, and NGC 506. ===== NGC 510 is a double star found by Schultz. His micrometrically measured position is within a couple of arcseconds of being correct. ===== NGC 513. This is one of the galaxies that WH found the night of 13 Sept 1784. This, along all but one of the others, have poor positions in NGC. RC3 managed to get the correct position, however. See NGC 537 for the story. ===== NGC 515. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 517. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 520 is apparently an interacting galaxy. Classified as an I0 by de Vaucouleurs, the distorted dust lane and unresolved bulge with plumes may be the result of a collision. Vorontsov-Velyaminov marks three components in his Atlas of Interacting Galaxies; I've provided positions for them in the table. However, in the near-infrared, the structure is simpler with a bright peak at the center connected by a bridge to a somewhat fainter knot to the northwest (this fainter knot has no optical counterpart). The central peak breaks up into at least three hot spots in the 2MASS J-band. The J2000.0 positions are Central peak, K-band: 01 24 34.89 +03 47 30.1 Central peak, H-band: 01 24 34.86 +03 47 29.9 Central peak, J-band: 01 24 34.86 +03 47 28.3 southeast spot Central peak, J-band: 01 24 34.65 +03 47 35.0 northwest spot Central peak, J-band: 01 24 35.04 +03 47 33.1 northeast spot Northwestern knot: 01 24 33.33 +03 48 02.8 The southern of the three optical components (VV 231b) corresponds most closely to the position of the infrared/radio nucleus. ===== NGC 523 = NGC 537, which see. ===== NGC 529. See NGC 531 and NGC 537. ===== NGC 530 = IC 106, which see. Also see IC 1696 which is a different galaxy. ===== NGC 531 and NGC 542 are positively identified by LdR's sketch and offsets from NGC 536. However, Dreyer, apparently thinking that NGC 529 was the bright object reobserved by LdR, used an incorrect position for the reference object. So, the positions he gives in LdR's 1880 paper, and in the NGC, are off by about 40 arcsec. ===== NGC 534. See NGC 549. ===== NGC 536. See NGC 531 and NGC 537. ===== NGC 537 = NGC 523, and the surroundings. The night of 13 September 1784 was not a good one for WH's clock readings. With one exception (H II 224 = NGC 404), all eight objects for which he used Beta Andromedae as a comparison star are off in RA, and -- as it has turned out -- by different amounts. In addition, his descriptions are scanty, so identifying his nebulae has proved difficult over the years. Here is the story, roughly in chronological order. WH's seven questionable objects (III 167 through III 173; NGC 515, 517, 513, 523, 536, 552, and 553, respectively -- yes, NGC 513 is out of order) all appeared in his sweep within 3 minutes of each other. Given the rush, he determined the positions for only five of them, lumping four together into two pairs, and treating the remaining three individually. In addition, Dreyer noted that WH recorded three transits -- III 167/8, 170, and 171 -- to only a full minute of time. Finally, WH himself noted the final two as "a little doubtful." JH has only five nebulae here. He claimed one (h120) to be the same as his father's III 171, and the western of that pair (h118) to be a nova. Auwers, and later d'Arrest, agreed with JH in making H III 171 = h 120, but noted the difficulties in Herschel's RAs for some of the nebulae. d'Arrest in particular pointed out discrepancies of about 40 seconds of time between his own RA's and WH's in several cases, and found what he thought was a new double nebula in the field (NGC 523). However, while assembling the GC, JH reinterpreted the field and chose to regard the nebulae that his father discovered as separate objects from his own. Dreyer, too, was aware of the problem when he compiled the NGC, and attempted to sort things out based primarily on d'A's observations. It's clear, however, that he was a bit uncertain about the state of the field as he wrote NGC notes for some of the objects, and commented again on all of them in his 1912 edition of WH's Scientific Papers. How can we make sense out of the two Herschels' observations? Let's start by assuming that WH's nebulae are properly ordered by RA, and that their polar distances (Declinations) are also relatively correct. Doing this, and looking at JH's and d'A's later observations, we can make some tentative identifications for NGC 513, 515, 517, and 536. Plotting the difference in RA (WH minus "true") for these, we see that as the time went on, WH's RA's got worse. Plotting a straight line through the data points, and putting a mark at WH's RA for III 170 = NGC 537 suggests an RA correction of about 0.9 minutes of time for it. This moves the RA back to within 0.2 arcmin of NGC 523, and confirms Dreyer's suspicion in the NGC Notes that WH's number belongs on this NGC number. Adding this point to the plot actually suggests that the slope might be even steeper. But what about N536 = III 171? Did WH really see that, or did he perhaps see its brighter, higher surface brightness companion, N529, which precedes it by about 40 seconds? (N536's two fainter companions found by Lord Rosse, N531 and N542, have problems of their own; they have a seperate note here under N531). Assuming WH in fact did see the western of the two objects, we can then draw a new line through the points on the plot (this steeper relationship suggests that WH's clock was running at about half speed!) in a desperate attempt to recover his final two objects, N552 and N553. If we correct WH's RA accordingly, the position of these two objects falls close to CGCG 502-084 and an equally bright 15th magnitude star just west of it. Finally, I note that -- with the exception of NGC 513, the first object in the series -- all of WH's declinations here are 3-4 arcmin too large. This lends a bit of support to the hypothesis I've sketched out. In the end, then, I'm suggesting these identifications for the nebulae in the area (the CGCG names added for verification): RA (1950.0) Dec NGC WH JH d'A CGCG III WH JH 01 21 37.32 +33 32 21.0 513 169 111 --- --- 521-020 01 21 49.18 +33 12 45.9 515 167 113 167 113 502-077 01 21 54.47 +33 10 10.6 517 168 114 168 114 502-079 01 22 31.01 +33 45 54.7 523=537 170 --- (Nova) 521-022 01 22 50.01 +34 27 11.6 529 171 118 --- 118 521-023 01 23 31.25 +34 26 38.7 536 --- 120 171 120 521-025 01 23 20.45 +33 08 46.8 552 172 --- --- --- --- = * 01 23 22.94 +33 08 44.7 553 173 --- --- --- 502-084 The careful reader will have already seen that the RA's for N552 and N553 are smaller than that for N536. This adds more weight to the idea that Herschel saw N529 rather than N536. A postscript: both Auwers and d'Arrest comment about WH's insecure RA's for these objects. However, d'A apparently goes on to suggest that some of JH's RA's are off, too. But they aren't, so I clearly need to take the time to translate the comments. ===== NGC 539 = NGC 563, which see. ===== NGC 540 is one of the 170 or so nebulae found at Leander McCormick in the mid-1880s to have a sketch. Unfortunately, the sketch shows only one star in addition to the nebula. However, that field is fairly well matched by ESO 542- G012 1 minute and 50 seconds east and about 5 arcmin south. I've taken that as a tentative identification for N540. See NGC 412 for another LM nebula with a sketch that did not work out so well. ===== NGC 542. See NGC 531. ===== NGC 544. See NGC 549. ===== NGC 546. See NGC 549. ===== NGC 549. Steve Gottlieb has suggested that the SGC identification of this galaxy is incorrect. He is almost certainly right, in spite of the poor right ascension from John Herschel (18 seconds of time off); Herschel's declination is correct, though. The SGC galaxy is 15 arcminutes south and 4 seconds of time east of Herschel's position. Though this is brighter, it does not match Herschel's description ("eeeF, S, R, vgbM. The 4th of a group of 4."). Instead, this matches very closely what I'd expect him to see based on his descriptions of the other three galaxies in the group (NGC 534, 544, and 546, all "eeF, S, R, vgbM"). Accepting Steve's identification, the only error is in Herschel's RA. For each of the other three galaxies, Herschel has two observations, but only lists one for N549. There are no significant zero point offsets in the differences between the raw positions for the other three galaxies. This means that we have no reasonable way to "correct" the original position of N549 as given by Herschel. This in turn means that we are left with only the description to help us identify the galaxy. And that points directly to the object which Steve (and the original ESO list 5 in A&A Sup) chose as NGC 549. ===== NGC 551. See IC 1707. ===== NGC 552. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 553. See NGC 537. ===== NGC 557 = IC 1703. NGC 557 comes from Swift's 6th list, sent in pieces to Dreyer before it was published. The final published description reads: "eF, S; B * f 15 seconds and is n of it." This differs a bit from the NGC description: "eF, S, R, * 10 nf," but not in any significant way. The star is actually south-following, but the galaxy is still almost uniquely identified by that star. Swift's RA is nearly 50 seconds of time out, and I wonder if he made a 1 minute error in reading his circles -- a 10 or 12 second error is somewhat closer to his usual accuracy. Bigourdan did not find N557 when he looked for it at the NGC place, but he did run across it a few minutes later. Thinking it was a "nova," he listed it as new and it ended up in the IC2 at its actual position. ===== NGC 558 is not equal to IC 117, which see. ===== NGC 560 is identical to IC 117, which see. ===== NGC 563 = NGC 539. Leavenworth's description for NGC 563, particularly his comments "little extended 0 deg" (which applies to the bar) and "several faint stars following, in line north and south" exactly describes another discovery of his, NGC 539 (which he sketched; the star field around the galaxy matches the POSS1 star field). The position for NGC 563 is two minutes too far east, a common error in the Leander McCormick lists. Unfortunately, there is another galaxy about half a degree south of the poor position in NGC that has been taken by all the modern cataloguers (including me in SGC and the early versions of ESGC) as N563. However, the description just does not fit the object, and declination errors are far more unusual in the LM lists than RA errors. The identity with N539 is secure. ===== NGC 564. See IC 117. ===== NGC 568 = IC 1709, which see. ===== NGC 575 = IC 1710. The 2 degree error in declination is one of the few errors that can be traced to Dreyer himself. Entering this object in his 1878 GC Supplement, he miscopied the correct "69" (degrees of NPD) as "67" (It is also possible that the typesetter made a typographical error. If so, Dreyer did not catch it during proofreading.) He later transferred this exactly to the NGC, so it too has the incorrect degree of NPD. When the correction is made, the galaxy turns out to be the same as IC 1710, found and measured by Javelle. Had the NGC the correct position, Javelle no doubt would have not included the galaxy as a discovery of his own. Dreyer, of course, transcribed the position correctly the second time around. The equality was first noticed by Reinmuth, and mentioned by him in "Die Herschel Nebel" of 1926. ===== NGC 577 = NGC 580. Tempel claims to have found two nebulae 2m 50s following NGC 560 and 564, a pair found by WH. There is only one here, and it was also picked up by Swift in 1886 (more below) and, even earlier in 1867, by A. N. Skinner at Dearborn Observatory (see IC 1528 for that story). Tempel's position for it, apparently from a letter to Dreyer -- the position in his first paper on nebulae is about two arcmin off the NGC position -- is not bad. In particular, the NGC RA is less than two seconds of time off. Curiously, Dreyer also credits Tempel's second paper for this first nebula. I find no mention of it there, so suspect that Dreyer simply noted the wrong paper number. I'll check the rest of Tempel's papers to see if it is in fact mentioned in any of them. The second of Tempel's nebulae is probably one of the stars in the area, but since he gives the position with a precision of only 10 seconds of time and 10 arcminutes, we have little hope of recovering his object (Dreyer adopted Swift's position for this object). There are two stars northeast of the galaxy, though, that are similar in brightness to others that Tempel mistook for nebulae (see e.g. NGC 4315 and NGC 4322). One is at 01 28 12.05, -02 13 01.0; and a second somewhat brighter star is at 01 28 19.78, -02 12 20.3 (both positions are for equinox B1950.0). As I mentioned above, Swift also picked up the galaxy, on the night of 20 November 1886. Since he made his RA 23 seconds larger than Tempel's, Dreyer believed that this was the second of Tempel's nebulae. So, he adopted Swift's position. Howe corrected the RA in an observation in 1898, but neither he nor Dreyer, who published the correction as an IC2 Note, noticed that that made Swift's object, NGC 580, identical to NGC 577. Some observers might want to put one of these numbers onto one of the stars I've noted. But that number would be the following of Tempel's two, the one with the imprecise position -- and that is the one that Dreyer used for Swift's object. And we do not know for sure which star, if either, is the one seen by Tempel. So the easiest, and still a truthful, solution is to simply say that Tempel's one real nebula is identical to Swift's. ===== NGC 580 = NGC 577, which see. ===== NGC 584 = IC 1712, which see. ===== NGC 586. See IC 1712. ===== NGC 587 is not IC 1713, which see. ===== NGC 603 is a triple star found by Lord Rosse. It's position was unfortunately not well-determined, so there has been some puzzle over its identity. Dreyer, in the Notes to IC1, claimed that he could only see a faint star in the place of NGC 603. (I've been unable to identify this star with any certainty. One candidate is at 01 31 30.4, +29 55 58, B1950.0, while Bigourdan has two observations of another at 01 31 44.7, +29 56 42.) However, Lord Rosse's description makes the identification certain, even without a good position: "A small nebula or cluster with 3 stars in it. It is about 8 arcmin south-southpreceding a double star whose components are of the 11th magnitude." This is very close to the actual distance of the double from the triple star -- but there is no nebulosity or cluster associated with the triple. I suspect that the discovery was made on a night of relatively poor seeing, leading to the impression of accompanying nebulosity. The B1950.0 positions of the three stars, all from GSC, are *1 01 31 54.54 +29 58 37.1 = GSC 02293-00972 *2 01 31 54.85 +29 58 45.4 = GSC 02293-00966 *3 01 31 55.37 +29 58 31.6 = GSC 02293-00998. I've adopted the mean value for the main table. ===== NGC 607 is a double star. (Is it possibly triple? The northern of two images on the POSS1 looks elongated, as if it were a close double. The DSS image, from the UK Schmidt, looks like a single star). D'Arrest's position is exact, and his description appropriate, particularly regarding the 9th magnitude star 29.7 seconds east and 2 arcmin north. ===== NGC 608. See NGC 618 and NGC 627. ===== NGC 610 and 611. This pair of objects is probably irretrieveably lost, thanks to Muller's poor discovery positions. I searched the sky for several degrees in all directions from the nominal positions, but turned up nothing that matches Muller's description. In particular, there are no galaxies in the area with a 10th magnitude star at position angle = 280 degrees, distance 2.4 arcmin. Muller also gives an "accurate" offset of N611 from N610: "Following previous at PA 60 degrees, dist = 0.5 arcmin," but then adds, "vF *?" This would be a striking configuration -- even if the second object is a star -- but it's nowhere in the area that I can see. There is no sketch, but even if there were, it could only confirm Muller's clear descriptions. Wolfgang Steinicke again drew my attention to this missing pair in July 1998. I made a further search at "reasonable" digit errors (e.g. 1hr in RA, 10deg in Dec), but found nothing matching Muller's description anywhere near any of the resulting positions. It may be worthwhile for other interested investigators to cover the areas, too -- they may have more luck than I. ===== NGC 611. See NGC 610. ===== NGC 614 = NGC 627, which see. It may also be NGC 618. See that, too. ===== NGC 616 is a double star. As with NGC 607, d'A's position is very good, and his description fits the object. In addition, his offsets -- 14.2 seconds west and 4 arcmin north -- to an 8th magnitude star are correct. ===== NGC 618 may be NGC 614 (which is also NGC 627, which see) -- or it may be NGC 608. JH's position points at nothing, and there is no star 2 min 51 sec east of that position as his description claims. NGC 614 fits his description ("pB, pL, bM") but the fairly bright star follows by only 55 sec. Is there perhaps a combination of transcription errors and/or typos in JH's offset to the star? I'm thinking perhaps that the superscript "m" on the 2 in his description stands for "magnitude" rather than "minute." The star, of course, is not 2nd magnitude -- this is where the error would have to occur. Whatever the case, there is certainly an error in JH's position for the galaxy. Is his object NGC 608? This is not quite as likely; N608 is the fainter of the two galaxies in the area. Also, N618 was found during a different sweep (102) than NGC 608 and NGC 614 (both sweep 106), and different again from N627 (sweep 100), the other "missing" object in the area. I'm tempted to simply equate N618 with N608, and N627 with N614. But the relative magnitudes, and the fact that N618 and N627 were found during different sweeps argues in favor of JH having seen only the brightest object during each sweep. So, I note the possibility of the identity of N618 with N614 or with N608, but would not bet my Pentium on it! ===== NGC 627 = NGC 614 (which may also be NGC 618, which see). JH's description reads "vF, R; another precedes which must be III. 174. The RA conjectural, and PD liable to some error." As noted in the discussion of NGC 618, JH has three sweeps over this area. During the first sweep (100), he picked up the two objects noted in his description that I've just given, during the second sweep (102) he found just one object (N618, which see), and during the third (106), he found another (N614). Since there are just two galaxies here, it is reasonable to suppose that JH picked them both up once, and noticed only the brightest on the other two sweeps. But, as I noted above, JH's positions and descriptions do not rule out other interpretations, so this is simply conjecture. ===== NGC 629 is a short line of five stars six or seven arcmin west-southwest of Struve's position. I've pulled the data for this from Auwers's list of novae attached to his catalogue of WH's nebulae and clusters. There he notes "Not seen in the Heliometer." However, Struve's description ("Irregular nebula with 3 stars") with his 9-inch Fraunhofer refractor certainly fits the asterism well enough. It reminds me of NGC 7150 (which see), another -- though somewhat smaller and fainter -- asterism also found with a refractor (the 16-inch at Harvard) by an experienced observer (G.P. Bond). ===== NGC 635 is probably MCG -04-05-002 just 3 degrees south of Leavenworth's nominal position. His sketch matches the galaxy and surrounding star field very well, so I'm willing to accept that he made a simple mistake in recording the declination. ===== NGC 643. This is a star cluster in the SMC. The RC3 incorrectly calls a galaxy by this name. That galaxy is the one that de Vaucouleurs called "NGC 643B". "NGC 643A", by the way, is another SMC star cluster, while "NGC 643C" is a spiral galaxy seen edge on. None of these are related to NGC 643 except by the near coincidences of their locations on the sky. ===== NGC 648 = IC 146, which see. ===== NGC 650 and NGC 651 together form M76. They are the two bright lobes of a bipolar planetary nebula. (The fainter, whispy loops to the northwest and southeast were most likely not seen well until M76 was photographed.) For GC and NGC, JH and Dreyer took the lobes as two separate nebulae, put the Messier number on N650, and the WH number (I 193) on N651. There is a little justification for this, but not very much. WH was the first to recognize that the nebula was apparently double. He says of it "Two close together. Both vB. dist. 2' sp nf. One is 76 of the Conn[oissance des Temps]." That, strictly speaking, is incorrect as neither Mechain nor Messier reported the nebula as double. Still, two NGC numbers it is for the single Messier number. This has happened at least once more. See NGC 5194 and NGC 5195, the two galaxies comprising M51 -- though for that, Messier did see the two separate objects. ===== NGC 651. See NGC 650. ===== NGC 652 has a +13 second error in its RA. It shares this with three other nebulae which Swift discovered the same night. See those (NGC 1450, N1509 = IC 2026, and N1594 = I2075) for more. Also see N1677 = N1659 for other notes about that night of 22 October 1886. ===== NGC 657 looks like a poor cluster of relatively bright stars against the crowded backdrop of the Milky Way. JH has it as "A ** (h2070), the chief of a p rich loose cl; sts 12." His position is for the double, SAO 22555, but the apparent center -- a rough circle of 5 stars -- of the cluster is about 4 arcmin southwest of the double. ===== NGC 674 = NGC 697. The right ascensions are just 2 minutes different, so it seems likely that N674 is another observation of N697. This strikes me as the only reasonable interpretation of d'A's observations, in spite of the fact that he claims to have found N674 on a night when he also observed N697. Is the night number, 4, perhaps in error? d'A also observed N697 on nights 5 and 93, but saw N674 only once. In any case, the descriptions are virtually identical, down to the 14th magnitude star 8 or 9 seconds east, and there are no other objects in the area that d'A would have described as "pB, vmE." ===== NGC 676, a 13th magnitude edgewise S0, has a bright star superposed just a few arcseconds south of the nucleus. Its visual appearance is well-described in the NGC. Its magnitude in CGCG, 10.5, is misleading, of course, applying more to the star than the galaxy. The galaxy's total magnitude is around 12.5, but has not yet been measured accurately. ===== NGC 684 = IC 165, which see. ===== NGC 687 is not IC 1737, which see. ===== NGC 696. See NGC 729. ===== NGC 697 = NGC 674, which see. ===== NGC 698. See NGC 729. ===== NGC 700 is CGCG 522-030, not the larger but fainter CGCG 522-027. LdR has the object 8 arcmin southwest of the center of the NGC 705 group; CGCG 522-030 is 8.1 arcmin southwest, while -027 is 6.5 arcmin west-southwest. Since its surface brightness is higher than -027's, it is the more likely to have been seen. This is indeed Steve Gottlieb's experience. He notes that while he could pick out -027 in his 17.5-inch reflector, only the nucleus was visible as a nearly stellar object, while -030 was clearly the more nebulous of the two. ===== NGC 705. See NGC 700. ===== NGC 716 = IC 1743. Swift's RA for the NGC object is good, but his declination is almost exactly 40 arcmin too far south. His description -- including the bright star near east -- is appropriate, so the identity (first suggested by Dreyer in the IC2 notes) is almost certain. There is no question of the identity of IC 1743. It was found by Bigourdan, and his four micrometric offsets point exactly at the galaxy. ===== NGC 718 is probably not also NGC 728, which see. ===== NGC 719 = IC 1744. D'Arrest's RA is 13 seconds of time off. This is close enough that either Dreyer or Javelle might have had some questions about the identity, especially given that the descriptions are so close. Well, that didn't happen, so the galaxy has two numbers now. ===== NGC 723 = NGC 724. JH missed this one when he was putting his GC together. In his 1833 PT catalogue he notes for h167 (N724): "It is barely possible [those two words in JH's italics] that this may be III.460 [N723] with a mistake in reading the PD. When he swept this up at the Cape a few years later, he specifically noted "No other neb within 15' all around." When he published his Cape Observations, he added in parentheses, "(N.B. This remark shows that the nebula No. 167 of my former Catalogue is really identical (as there suspected) with III.460.)" Nevertheless, his two objects are entered separately in GC without a note, so it was left to Dreyer to add a query in the NGC description: "[? = h166]". JH and Dreyer were both right -- the two numbers do indeed refer to the same galaxy. RNGC, ESO, and SGC all carried along the equality. ===== NGC 727 = NGC 729, which see. ===== NGC 728 is probably the triple star about 1.5 arcmin north-northwest of JH's position. JH has only one observation of this object which he describes as "A suspected nebula." D'Arrest could not find this object, though he only looked for it once. On a night of relatively poor seeing, the three stars (with a maximum separation of about 20 arcsec, might appear nebulous. A glance at the Sky Survey suggests that N728 might be a reobservation of NGC 718, about 2 minutes west of JH's place (the declinations are the same to within the errors). However, JH first observed N718 in the same sweep (No. 95) in which he found N728. So, the two are unlikely to be the same. ===== NGC 729 = NGC 727. JH describes N729 = h2446 as "eeeF, S, R. RA only rudely taken by a star, being out of the field." He recorded it only once in Sweep 803. Much earlier, however, in Sweep 486, he found another nebula in the area, N727 = h 2445. His description of that reads "F, S, R, bM, 15 arcsec." He then adds (in italics enclosed by square brackets, flagging a note added during the preparation of the Cape Observations for publication), "It is barely possible that this and the next nebula [h2446 = N729] may be identical with Nos. 2440 [= N696] and 2441 [= N698] by a mistaken degree in PD." The relative positions -- the later object in each pair is northeast of the earlier -- as well as the descriptions [N696: "F, S, R, 15 arcsec;" N698: "vvF, S"] support the idea. I suspect that JH also had his note about the "rudely taken" RA in mind when he added his comment several years later. However, the N696/8 pair was found in Sweep 802, and its RA is 4 min 15 sec off the N727/9 pair. This means 1 degree errors in both coordinates, rather than just in Dec as JH points out. Since the position of N729, "rudely taken" as it is, is close to that of N727, and since the two were seen on different nights, it seems more plausible to me that the observations refer to the same object. We can't dismiss JH's comment out of hand, though having both coordinates off by a degree would be unusual in his southern data. ESO's suggestion that N729 is a double star at 01 52 01, -36 03.0 (it is ESO 354-**011) seems less probable to me. JH made many hurried observations of "new" nebulae which have turned out to be identical to objects that he has securely observed during other sweeps. ===== NGC 730 is a star -- or perhaps two different stars. Bigourdan has observations of this on three nights. The discovery observation on 7 Nov 1885, is only an estimate: +11 seconds and -4 arcmin from BD +5 328; there is nothing at that position, though three stars in a line are south and west. On 4 Dec of the same year, he has a single micrometric measurement that falls between the two eastern stars, though slightly closer to the eastern most. Finally, on 30 Nov 1891, his two measurements point exactly at this eastern most -- and brightest -- star of the three. In any event, Bigourdan described the object on the three different nights as 1) having a "Doubtful aspect," 2) being "Strongly stellar; could be a star 13.4 accompanied by nebulosity," and 3) as "Pretty strongly stellar. Could be a small nebula or a nebulous star; however, I'm not certain that there is any nebulosity there." Since even he sounds pretty convinced that his object is stellar, I'm not about to disagree! ===== NGC 731 = NGC 757, which see. ===== NGC 733 is most likely a star. Lord Rosse found a group of five nebulae in the area of NGC 736 (the brightest) on 11 October 1850. His sketch is reasonably accurate, though it is distorted in that it exaggerates the north-south separations between the objects. His micrometric offsets from N736 also point quite accurately to the surrounding objects, including the star which I've taken as N733. The sketch confirms the relative distances in the table between N733, N736, and N740 (the distance between N733 and N736 is about half that between N736 and N740). However, at the same position angle as the star, and just 100 arcsec further from the star which I take as N733, is a faint galaxy. Not otherwise catalogued, this is possibly the object which Lord Rosse meant to measure and sketch. Since the evidence from the sketch and the measurements point directly at the star, though, I'm currently retaining it, and not the galaxy, as N733. But I've nevertheless listed the galaxy, too, with the requisite question marks. ===== NGC 736 is the brightest of a group of five. See NGC 733 and NGC 737 for more. ===== NGC 737 is a line of three stars in the corona of NGC 736. This object was variously seen as a single star and as a nebula by the early observers. Lord Rosse seems to be the first to list it as possibly nebulous, so Dreyer included it in the NGC. Reinmuth found only the three stars at the place of Lord Rosse's nebula (shown in his sketch of the group around N736, and measured micrometrically by him in October 1850), and that is all that I see there on the POSS, too. ===== NGC 739. Ralph Copeland found this object near NGC 750 and N751 on 9 January 1874 using Lord Rosse's 72-inch telescope. He measured the distance and position angle from NGC 750; these point exactly at the galaxy he saw. His measures of three stars around N739 are also exact, giving further confirmation to the identification. In his description of the object, however, he mistakenly has N739 "south-preceding" N750, rather than "north-preceding." When Dreyer reduced a position for the object during preparation of Lord Rosse's observations for publication in 1880, he too made a mistake, placing the position of N739 too far south by 2 arcmin. Thus, the identity with the galaxy has been missed by most of the modern catalogues. ===== NGC 740. See NGC 733. ===== NGC 741 = IC 1751. This, along with NGC 742, was discovered by William Herschel, reobserved by John Herschel, and by Lord Rosse. N741 itself is the brightest in a group of galaxies, and the positions in NGC from the Herschels are good. Furthermore, their descriptions make it clear that all saw the same two galaxies. They did not pick up any of the other objects in the area. This leads to the puzzle of why the brighter of the two was also included in IC. True, it reappeared in Swift's 11th list of "new" nebulae (with one of his typically inaccurate positions), and was reobserved by Herbert Howe at Chamberlin Observatory in Denver. Howe provided a very good micrometric position for it which was adopted by Dreyer for the IC. I suspect that as Dreyer had come to trust Howe's positions and identifications (most of Howe's observations are of known objects), he (Dreyer) didn't bother to check the NGC to see if the galaxy had been seen previously. More recently, the IC number has been attached in CGCG (and in other subsequent lists) to the galaxy (CGCG 413-006) just over an arcminute northwest of N741. This object is indeed brighter than many that Swift found, but his description of a 9th magnitude star "north-preceding" rather than simply "preceding" pretty well establishes the identity. It is further pinned down by Howe's measurement of the distance and direction to the star (actually a double, or perhaps a single star superposed on a galaxy) which points exactly to N741 as the object that he measured. ===== NGC 742. See NGC 741 = IC 1751. ===== NGC 749 is not IC 1740, which see. ===== NGC 750 is the western of a well-known pair of interacting ellipticals (NGC 751 is the other). See NGC 739 for more. ===== NGC 751 is the eastern galaxy in an interacting double (NGC 750 is the other). See NGC 739. ===== NGC 755 = NGC 763, which see. ===== NGC 757 = NGC 731. Both N757 and N763 (which see) were found by Ormond Stone with the Leander McCormick 26-inch, presumeably on the same night, though he doesn't give us the dates in the discovery paper. He has, however, left us a sketch of N763 labeled "Drawn Jany 11.0 1886, sketched Jany 4.5 1885" where the "1885" pretty clearly should be 1886 (there are a couple of other sketches from early 1886 where the dates are given correctly). In any event, this is the western of two relatively bright galaxies in the area, found by WH early in 1785 (the other, as I noted, is NGC 755 = NGC 763). Taking Stone's poor positions into account, the true position difference of the two galaxies pretty well matches the difference in Stone's positions for his two nebulae. In addition, his descriptions match the galaxies very well, particularly his estimated magnitudes and diameters (N757: m = 11.0, D = 0.4 arcmin, gbMN; N763: m = 13.0, D = 1.6 x 0.4 arcmin, PA = 65 deg, gbMN). Even though WH's relative positions are good (though his declinations are about 4 arcmin too far north), JH had trouble with these two objects. Though he claims his Slough observation is for one of his father's objects, and his Cape observation is for the other, neither of his positions is very good. I suspect that both observations refer to the brighter western galaxy, N731. Peters got things sorted out when he micrometrically remeasured the galaxies' positions (see his second Copernicus article and his discussion in AN 2365). Dreyer adopted Peters's good positions for the NGC. Finally, my identification of both N757 and N763 with NGC 755 in the early versions of ESGC is wrong. ===== NGC 760 is a double star found by Copeland with Lord Rosse's 72-inch. His offset for it from NGC 761 is accurately measured, and his position for N761 is in turn well-measured from one of Lalande's stars. Thus, the NGC position is good, and the identification not in doubt. ===== NGC 761. See NGC 760. ===== NGC 763 = NGC 755. This is the southeastern of two pretty bright nebulae, originally found by WH. Fortunately, Stone has left us a sketch of the object which clearly shows it to be N755. Assuming that he found both nebulae the same night, the northwestern (N757) is almost certainly identical to NGC 731. See the discussion of NGC 757 for more. ===== NGC 764 may be the double star at 01 54 38.9, -16 18 22. There are no other candidates for it nearby, and Stone has left no sketch. His description is appropriate for the stars ("eF, vS, iR, gbM") but given his poor positions in the two Leander McCormick lists, its identity as N764 is nothing more than a guess. Curiously, the next object in Stone's list (No. 46) is not in NGC at all. It is described by Stone as "m = 14.0, D = 0.2, R, gbMN" and may simply be a star. But I do not see why Dreyer left it out of the NGC. Other of Stone's objects with similar descriptions are included, so the omission of this one is puzzling. In any event, there is nothing at all in the area that can be clearly identified with this list entry, so perhaps Dreyer had reason to suspect it that he has not told us. ===== NGC 771 = 50 Cassiopeiae is a star. During one sweep, JH said, "I suspect this star to be nebulous." No one since, including JH himself, has been able to see the suspected nebulosity. JH wrote in GC, and Dreyer quoted in NGC, "Retained in the catalogue for future occasional observation. Nothing can be more difficult than to verify or disprove the nebulosity of a considerable star under ordinary atmospheric conditions." A quick look (via SIMBAD) at the astrophysical literature on 50 Cas turned up no observed spectral peculiarities associated with it -- it is a normal A1 V main sequence star. Similarly, a look at the POSS1 reveals no trace of even faint nebulosity around the star. JH may have been misled by a moment of particularly poor seeing. ===== NGC 783 = IC 1765, which see. ===== NGC 785 = IC 1766, which see. ===== NGC 789. See NGC 793. ===== NGC 793. This is one of the few nebulae found by J.G. Lohse, an English amateur astronomer, working at the observatory of another amateur, Mr. Wigglesworth. Unfortunately, the observations never seem to have been published outside the NGC, so Lohse's approximate position and description as recorded in the NGC is all the information that we have. For this particular object, Lohse says only, "Very very faint, between two stars; south-following NGC 789." The only object in the area that fits the description is the faint double about two arcmin southeast of Lohse's place. It is quite a faint object (it is not in GSC), so Mr. Wigglesworth must have had a considerable telescope if Lohse was to have seen it. Some digging in the literature is clearly called for to find the details we need to know about the observatory and its instruments. Without that, my possible identification, while fitting Lohse's description, can only be tentative. ===== NGC 794 = IC 191, which see. ===== NGC 797. See NGC 801. ===== NGC 801. Four other galaxies (NGC 19, 21, 7831, and 7836; see these and NGC 6 for more discussion) discovered earlier in the evening of 20 September 1885 by Lewis Swift share a common offset in Swift's positions from the true positions of +1m 10s in RA and +8m 8s in Dec. If we accept the identity of NGC 801 as given by most catalogues (it is a large edgewise spiral on the northeast edge of Abell 262), then Swift's position for this object is about -19 sec and -0.9 arcmin off, more in line with Swift's usual precision (or lack of it). Swift mentions a "double star close following" which may be the faint double near the southeast end of the spindle. However, both stars are roughly at 17th magnitude on the POSS1; could Swift have seen them? Well, there is no other candidate galaxy near aside from NGC 797, and there are no doubles anywhere near it. So, while the identity of NGC 801 is somewhat uncertain, I will stick with it for now. Incidentally, this galaxy almost got an IC number as well. Searching for NGC 801, Bigourdan rediscovered this object -- it is number 473 in his fifth list of new nebulae. The first four lists were published in time for them to be included in the NGC or the IC's. The fifth list was not. Consequently, it has received almost no attention in the subsequent literature. ===== NGC 804 = IC 1773, which see. ===== NGC 810. Stephan's position, given in both MNRAS and AN, is correct, but the NGC position is 10 seconds west. This is one of the few transcription errors that Dreyer made in his catalogues. The galaxy itself appears to be triple: a close dumbbell is oriented south- west-northeast, and a much fainter companion (or jet?) is just east of the southwestern component. Stephan noted only one object here, and the dumbbell is just barely noticeable on POSS1. ===== NGC 811. The nominal RA, from a single observation by Leavenworth at Leander McCormick, is about 50 seconds too far east. This is not as bad as many of the Leander McCormick nebulae, but is still off enough that I did not recover this for ESGC. The identity is solidified by the star just an arcminute to the south -- Leavenworth mentions it in his description. ===== NGC 814 and 815. These two objects, found by Ormond Stone at Leander McCormick in 1886, have been misidentified or given up as lost by nearly everyone who has tried to find them. However, Stone's sketch, made a few days after their discovery, points to the correct objects a full eight minutes of time east of the recorded (and published) positions. The star field is unmistakeable, and the objects match Stone's descriptions. ===== NGC 815. See NGC 814. ===== NGC 823 = IC 1782, which see. ===== NGC 832 may be a double star. D'Arrest has only one observation of the nova, noting a star 9-10 about 5 arcmin southwest. There is such a star about four arcmin southeast of his position (copied correctly into NGC), but there is nothing at his position nor is there another bright star southwest of it. However, about 4 arcmin northeast of the star is a faint double star. It is 24 seconds east of d'A's position, and just 0.2 arcmin north. It is the sort of object that he could have seen as a "F, S" nebula on even a good night. Lacking any other candidate, this is a possible choice for his nova. ===== NGC 834. This was discovered by WH, who remained its sole observer at the time the NGC was compiled. See NGC 841 for more. ===== NGC 841 is the brightest of three galaxies forming a small group (the others are NGC 834 and 845). Though credited to Stephan (who has a note that it is clearly distinct from the other two, indicating that he saw all three), it was actually found by WH, and observed by d'Arrest. Interestingly, JH saw only the faintest of the three. Though his position is virtually exact for it, he was enough convinced that his object and his father's were the same that he equated them. So, in GC he noted a 1 minute of time difference in the RA's and adopted his own. For N834, he used his father's position since he did not come across it during his own sweeps. Thus, when Stephan observed the trio, he found two GC objects at their correct positions, and a "new" nebula which he measured and included in his list of "novae". Like WH, d'A also saw only the brightest of the three, but made the RA about 13 seconds too large (17 seconds larger than WH's). He, too, assumed that all the observations referred to the same object, so that is how Dreyer put them into NGC. There, Dreyer adopted d'A's RA for NGC 845. The credits for H III 604 and d'A need to be moved from NGC 845 to NGC 841. Aside from that and the adjustment needed for the RA of N845, the NGC is pretty close to being correct. ===== NGC 842 is one of the few Leander McCormick nebulae that is absolutely, positively identified. Not only did Leavenworth observe it three times, he made two sketches of the field. Even so, the nominal RA is 46 seconds of time off the true RA, a good indication of the quality of the LM positions. See NGC 412 for an LM nebula, found and sketched the same night as one of N842's, not so fortunate in its observation. ===== NGC 843 is a triple star very close to d'A's position. He describes the triple as a faint, small, round globular cluster. On a night of less than perfect seeing, that is how the triple must appear. ===== NGC 845. This is the faintest of three galaxies, and the only one seen by JH. Move the WH number (III 604) and the other observer credit to d'A to NGC 841 (which see). That is the brightest of the three. ===== NGC 846 = NGC 847. Stephan's micrometrically measured position is very accurate; Swift's position, estimated from setting circles is not too bad, and his description of the four field stars nearby is appropriate, too. The identity, first suggested by Spitaler in the early 1890's and included in the 1st IC, is certain. ===== NGC 856 = NGC 859. See NGC 863. ===== NGC 859 = NGC 856. See NGC 863. ===== NGC 863 = NGC 866 = NGC 885 and company. The problem here is what to do with the five observations reported by Lewis Swift in his fifth "catalogue" of nebulae, published in Astronomische Nachrichten No. 2763 (Vol. 116, page 33, 1886). All five received NGC numbers: 856, 859, 866, 868, and 885. So, in addition to NGC 863, found by William Herschel (H III 260), there are six numbers in the area and but only three fairly bright galaxies. NGC 863 itself is no problem. The NGC position, from JH's observations, is very good (there is a 30 second error in WH's RA; see Dreyer's note in his edition of WH's Scientific Papers). It obviously pins down the brightest of the galaxies in the area (which, by the way, is Markarian 590). Another of the galaxies is very nearly as bright (Mark 590 and this second galaxy are listed at m_p = 14.0 and 14.4, respectively, in the CGCG), and I'm a bit surprised that the Herschels did not see it. These two are obviously the two brightest that Swift found on the night of 3 October 1886 (N859 and N866, numbers 23 and 24, respectively, in his AN list). The relative positions that he gives them are correct -- "np of 2" and "sf of 2." The declinations are not too bad, but the RA's are out. The third object that he found that night is NGC 868; the position is not too bad, and the description (what there is of it: "eF, pS, R") is appropriate. Swift returned to the area on 31 October of the same year, finding two more objects. The first of these, NGC 856 (the 22nd object in Swift's list), has a good position, and the description ("eF, S, lE, F * close") is again appropriate. The star was measured by both Bigourdan and Howe, and is about a minute of arc east and slightly north of the galaxy. The second object, NGC 885 (number 27), has -- if my conjecture is correct -- the largest positional error of any of Swift's five objects here: five minutes of time in RA. Swift's declination is good. What I believe happened on this night is that Swift simply rediscovered the two brightest galaxies. So, NGC 859 = NGC 856 and NGC 885 = NGC 863. His descriptions of the brightnesses of the two objects, though, is systematically fainter -- "eF" vs. "pF" for the fainter of the two, and "vF" vs. "pF" for the brighter -- than on his earlier night's observations. This suggests to me that the sky was not as good on this second night as on the first, or that Swift was then simply noting nebulae as fainter. The right ascension problem for NGC 885 is, I believe, one of Swift's large random errors that are littered throughout his lists. For example, in the same list, NGC 1689 (found 22 October 1886) is also five minutes out, being = NGC 1667. Another example: NGC 1037, also in the same list, has as a part of its description "[GC] 581 in field." This means that GC 581 = NGC 1032 must be within 16 arcminutes of Swift's object (Swift was using an eyepiece that had a field diameter of 32 arcmin), but his declination for NGC 1037 is 2 deg 49.7 arcmin different from NGC 1032's declination! In summary, then, I think that my original assignments of the NGC numbers are probably correct, though we do not have the evidence to be absolutely sure. The observations reported by Herbert Howe in M.N. 68, 356, 1898, and 69, 29, 1900, support my position: he could not find NGC 859, NGC 866, and NGC 885, though he reports observing NGC 856, NGC 863, and NGC 868. Bigourdan also has observations of only three objects here, though he assigns a different number to the faintest: NGC 859 rather than NGC 868. I've yet to sort out his data completely, however. ===== NGC 866 = NGC 863 (which see) = NGC 885. ===== NGC 867 may be the same galaxy as NGC 875. Or it may be the same as IC 225. Or it may be neither, or another galaxy altogether. I don't have enough information to tell. Here is the story. This is the second of WH's third class (very faint) of nebulae, found during his first season of sweeping the sky. He placed it "13 minutes :: following, -- north" of 60 Ceti. Dreyer has a note in the Scientific Papers that reads (in full): Sweep 61, Dec 21, 1783. "An almost invisible F. neb., it is R. and about 8 or 10 arcsec diameter, being brighter in the center than outwards. It can only be seen when the glass is perfectly clean and the attention confined to the object." By two diagrams, it is about 1 1/2 deg nf a star which was taken to be 69 Ceti, but obs. was interrupted by clouds. Not found by Bigourdan twice. In his 1912 MN list of corrections to WH's NGC nebulae, Dreyer shortens this to read merely, "The place of III.2 is extremely uncertain." The suggestion that it might be NGC 875 comes from d'A who found N875 and measured a pretty accurate position for it. Dreyer copied this suggestion into the NGC description for N875. Auwers places it at "02 07 29, -1::" for 1830 which places it at 02 13 37, -0.5 for 1950. This is more than a degree south of the GC (and NGC) position, and I wonder if Auwers has his declination sign wrong. He has no note for the object, nor does JH in GC. And that is pretty much it as far as the observations go. The crude offset from 60 Ceti suggests that N875 is the galaxy WH saw, while the 69 Ceti note suggests that IC 225 might be his object. NGC 875 is brighter by half a magnitude and is therefore the more obvious choice, but the agreement of the diagrams -- assuming the identification of the star as 69 Ceti is correct -- is also compelling. We will have to go back to WH's observing records for the sweep to look for other clues. For example, I suspect that Dreyer has replaced the original offset published in PT, but that is only a suspicion, based on JH's adoption of a fully-reduced position in GC, and on Auwers's partially-reduced position. So, at the moment, all I can say is "NGC 867 may be the same galaxy as NGC 875. Or it may be the same as IC 225. Or ..." ===== NGC 868. See NGC 863. ===== NGC 874. Though Muller's position is off, his description is exact, including the position angle of the galaxy and the position angle and distance of the neighboring star. The RC3 is correct in this case. ===== NGC 875 may also be NGC 867, which see. ===== NGC 885 = NGC 863 (which see) = NGC 866. ===== NGC 886. Thanks to a typo ("6" for "5"), this appeared in an earlier unpublished errata list of mine as being equal to NGC 863. It's not, of course. It is actually a scattered cluster of about 20-30 stars centered near JH's position. It's obvious on the POSS; nevertheless, RNGC chose to call it "non-existent." See Brent's Monograph on the "non-existent" clusters for more. ===== NGC 894 is the northwestern arm of NGC 895. Lord Rosse and his observer at first thought that this was a double nebula. But their description makes clear that, after some study, they regarded the two as parts of the same extended system. This, of course, is just what they are. ===== NGC 896. Though WH noted the polar distance as uncertain, his position is only 4 arcmin south of the nebula, a bright knot in a huge HII ring (or possibly a supernova remnant). ===== NGC 900. See NGC 901. ===== NGC 901 is just 2.8 arcmin nnf NGC 900, and the NGC position (from Marth, who found the pair) is very close to the true position. Nevertheless, this has not prevented MCG and RNGC from getting the identification wrong. MCG calls N900 "N901," and RNGC claims N901 to be non-existent (though it does get N900 right). In spite of this, the identifications of the two objects are clear. ===== NGC 917. JH's position is exactly 20 arcmin too far north in declination. His description, "vF, S, R; forms a semicircle with four stars" from a single observation in Sweep 106 is a prefect match for UGC 1890 and four nearby field stars. Lord Rosse looked at the area of JH's published position, but saw only several very faint stars. There are two double stars about an arcminute south of JH's place. These are very faint; while they might have been visible in the 72-inch, it's very unlikely that JH could have seen them with the 20-foot reflector. In any case, UGC 1890 is almost certainly the object he saw. The galaxy and the nearby stars match his description exactly. ===== NGC 930 is lost. Copeland found it just an arcminute northwest of NGC 932 with Lord Rosse's 72-inch. He saw it only one night, and made a micrometric measurement of it with respect to the nucleus of NGC 932. Two stars that he also measured (on three other nights as well) are just where he places them. But there is no trace of his nebula. There is a faint knot (or superposed companion) in the corona of N932, but it is only about 35 arcsec northeast of the nucleus. While Copeland might have been able to see this, there is no way to make his measurement fit. There are no other likely galaxies nearby that he might have seen, either -- aside from NGC 938 about 10 arcmin east-southeast which he, in fact, also saw. So, NGC 930 is a mystery. The modern catalogues, by the way, are wrong in adopting that number for the galaxy that is here. Dreyer clearly meant NGC 932 to apply to WH's object. ===== NGC 932 is the correct number to apply to WH's nebula, not NGC 930 (which is lost; see its note for more) as most modern catalogues do. ===== NGC 937 is a curious galaxy. In the DSS2 blue image, it looks like a fairly normal late-type spiral, at least in its outer regions. Towards the center is what at first glance appears to be a bar, but turns out to be nothing more than a knot on the western side with the rest of the "bar" being an extended bulge. This is centered a few arcseconds north of a relatively bright, superposed star. At least it looks like a star, and Stephan saw it that way, too. Its image is quite stellar on the 2MASS scans, but there are whisps of nebulosity around it in both the DSS2 images. Even more curiously, the brightest pixel in this "star's" image, on both red and blue DSS2 plates, is on the northern edge close to the center of the outer isophotes of the galaxy. Is this "superposed star" perhaps some kind of extremely bright knot in the galaxy, or perhaps even an overexposed stellar nucleus? If I had to guess, I would say that it is a star. But we really do need a spectroscopic study of the galaxy to say for sure. ===== NGC 944 = IC 228. Javelle's position for IC 228 is accurate, but Leavenworth's for NGC 944 is not. As is usual for many of the Leander McCormick nebulae in the first two AJ lists, the crude position there is over 1.5 minutes of time too far east. Fortunately, Leavenworth has left us a sketch showing not just the nebula, but two nearby field stars in their correct relative positions and brightnesses. The brighter of the stars is BD -15 430, Javelle's reference star. ===== NGC 952. Stephan has misidentified his comparison star. My first suspicion was that he switched the comparison stars for this and for NGC 983 (which see; briefly, when 15 Triangulum is used as the comparsion star for N983, Stephan's position exactly matches that for NGC 1002). The position he lists for the N983 star, however -- "786 B.A.C." = 15 Tri -- has no bright star near it (that position is RA = 02h 24m 11.23s, NPD = 58d 59m 27.6s, for 1870). Furthermore, he lists different NPD's for the nebula in the two papers in which he published his third list: in MN, the NPD is given as 59 49 52.1; while in AN, the NPD is 55 49 52.1. There is nothing in either position. The next thing to try is to look for galaxies in the area that are at the offset inferred from Stephan's published positions. These are -4m 25.61s in RA, and +2m 58.0s in Dec. A cursory scan of the relevant areas didn't turn up any reasonable candidates, but I suspect that a careful inspection of the fields northwest of the stars between 5 and 9 in Triangulum would eventually reveal Stephan's object. Until then, however, N952 is unfortunately "Not found." ===== NGC 961 = NGC 1051 = IC 249. Stone's description matches Stephan's in every respect, but his (Stone's) RA is just 10 minutes of time off, an obvious digit error. See IC 249 for more on that story. ===== NGC 963 = IC 1808. Leavenworth's position, like many of his, is too far east by over a minute of time. But his declination and description, like many of his, are about right. Since he left us no sketch of the field, we have to depend on just the declination and description, but I have little doubt that they refer to IC 1808. Javelle rediscovered the galaxy about a decade after Leavenworth saw it; the position he measured at Nice -- and therefore the IC2 position -- is correct. ===== NGC 964 = IC 1814, which see. ===== NGC 970. See NGC 971. ===== NGC 971 is a star. Lord Rosse's diagram and micrometric measurements with respect to NGC 970 point exactly to the star. Thus, though some have taken the faint companion of NGC 970 as NGC 971, this is incorrect. ===== NGC 980 and NGC 982. William Herschel found these two nebulae, but did not measure individual positions; his position is "between them." Thus, it is John Herschel's positions that are used in the GC and NGC. Unfortunately, JH did not carry over into the GC his uncertainty in the position of H III 572 = h 235; this is noted in his 1833 catalogue (RA and NPD): "02 24 40.5:, 49 55 25:". The other nebula, H III 573 = h 235 carries no such uncertainty symbols: "02 24 44.8, 49 52 39." If this latter position is precessed to 1950, it agrees closely with those measured by Bigourdan and by Dressel and Condon for "NGC 980." Dressel and Condon, of course, simply copied the designation from UGC. Bigourdan gives no reason for his identifications, simply noting that "NGC 982" is fainter than "NGC 980." The MCG, however, calls this southeastern object "NGC 982," apparently preferring to believe that the NGC declination is incorrect rather than the right ascension. Who's right? Let's look back at John Herschel's observations since that is where the incorrect position comes from. If we precess his uncertain position for the western object, we find that the RA but not the declination agrees with that from the modern observations. So, the two galaxies are oriented northwest- southeast on the sky, but the NGC positions (from Sir John) say southwest- northeast. Indeed, the GC and NGC descriptions state this orientation explicitly. However, Dreyer has a note in the NGC repeating part of Sir John's original description for h 235: "Dist. 3 arcmin; pos from the next one = 337.0 deg," and adding, "Is the p one perhaps the most northern? H says nothing about their relative position; not observed by d'A." John Herschel's note about the position angle between the two being 337 deg is the vital clue here, since it suggests that the nw/se orientation is correct. Let's now take the position of h 236 as correct -- as indeed it is within the known statistical errors of Sir John's observations (about 2 arcmin). Now, assume that Sir John measured the position of h 235 with respect to h 236, perhaps by measuring the distance and position angle that he quotes. This would then imply that he made an error in calculating the offset in declination. If this is true, then changing the sign of the declination offset (2 arcmin 46 arcsec) would put the declination exactly on the true declination: +40 42.5 for 1950 (NPD = 49 49 53 for 1830). So, here is another case where the position for a nebula was measured with respect to another nearby nebula, which in turn was referred to the "fundamental" reference system (see the note on NGC 2424 and 2427 for another instance of this). So, I think that the declination of NGC 980 is out by 5.5 arcmin, that the UGC identifications are switched, and that the MCG got them right. Another minor mystery: in the GC, JH has the distance as "210 arcsec" rather than "3 arcmin". This makes his observation closer to the true distance on the sky. I suspect that it comes from his original observing records -- but why didn't he use it in his 1833 list? ===== NGC 982. See NGC 980. ===== NGC 983 = NGC 1002. Stephan misidentified his comparison star, a mistake caught by the editor of the Monthly Notices and given a footnote in Stephan's third list (the editor, too, made a mistake: for "... R.A. 02h 17m 52.66s ..." read "... R.A. 02h 27m 52.66s ..."). When the right star, 15 Triangulum, is used, Stephan's micrometrically measured position falls exactly on NGC 1002. The error is also mentioned in Esmiol's 1916 re-reduction of Stephan's observations. ===== NGC 993 = NGC 994. Marth found this in January of 1865, and only observed it once. Nevertheless, his position is good. That and his brief description (eF, vS) is enough to identify the galaxy he saw. Swift redisovered it 20 years and some months later in October 1885. His description of the galaxy and the surrounding star field exactly matches Marth's object: "eeF, pS, R, vF * close; bet a pB * and a F D *; np of 2 [the 'sf of 2' is NGC 1004] ..." So far, so good. But then Swift adds, "... not [GC] 5251 [NGC 993], 5264 [N1016] nor 602 [N1073]." This led Dreyer to assign a separate NGC number in spite of the virtually identical positions and descriptions. Swift seems to have confused another galaxy in the field with Marth's object. But I can't venture a guess as to which one it might be. I don't see any nearby that are bright enough for him to see that he has not already named. Perhaps there is an asterism in the area that he picked up. Whatever he did, there is no doubt about which galaxy he saw -- it was the same one that Marth saw (the identity was first suggested in CGCG, by the way). ===== NGC 996. See IC 240. =====