Notable Contributions by Project Team Members

While this web site is the result of efforts by a number of individuals along the way, who have offered ideas, suggestions, and critiques, there are those folks who have put forth a significant amount of individual effort to make the project database, and this web site, as useful as is possible. Their contributions are listed below, and it is sincerely hoped that we have not overlooked anyone.

Dr. Harold G. Corwin, Jr. - (hgcjr@ipac.caltech.edu)

Harold G. Corwin, Jr is the guiding force behind The NGC/IC Project. Over the course of Harold's career as a distinguished professional astronomer (AGC, SGC, & RC3), he has been collecting photocopies of published and unpublished papers authored by the discoverers of the objects which eventually found their way into the NGC and IC's. It is only because of Harold's perseverence over the last 30+ years of collecting these historical papers, from observatories, libraries, and universities located all over the world, that this project is even now possible today. Additionally, Harold has supplied the Project with his Precise Position files as well as the fruits of his forensic astronomical sleuthing relative to a number of long standing puzzles associated with the NGC and IC's. In keeping with his life-long vision relative to this project, Harold has supplied the "Historical Perspective", and "Mission Statement", and has contributed his machine readable, corrected copies of "The Abell Catalogue of Rich Galaxy Clusters" (AGC), "The Southern Galaxy Catalogue" (SGC), and "The Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies" (RC3) to the Data Library and Archive page for download by users of this web site.

Brian A. Skiff - (bas@lowell.edu)

Brian Skiff has been an enthusiastic supporter of this project for a long time. Brian has supplied his "Precise Positions for the NGC/IC Planetary Nebulae", "Observational Data for Galactic Globular Clusters", and "Photometry of stars in the fields of five galaxies" for use by The NGC/IC Project in it's database, and for inclusion into the Published Papers page of this web site. Brian also helped immensely with the layout of these papers for best viewing, and is a continuing, excellent source of current and historical astronomical data for the project based upon his position on the professional staff of Lowell Observatory.

Steve Gottlieb - (sgottlieb@telis.org)

Steve Gottlieb has contributed an enormous amount of time to this project in the form of observing sessions tageted at NGC/IC puzzle solving, paper-chase research based upon the historical record, and a lifetime of visually observing the NGC and IC objects. Steve Gottlieb, who during his on-going observing career, has observed 6750+ NGC objects, mostly above -45° declination, and has been a wealth of contemporary visual descriptions for these NGC and IC objects. Steve Gottlieb has also supplied the "Corrections To The RNGC:1", "Corrections To The RNGC:2", "Corrections To The RNGC:3", "Corrections To The RNGC:4", "Corrections To The RNGC:5", "Corrections To The RNGC:6", and "Corrections To The RNGC:7" for inclusion into the Published Papers page of this web site. Steve also supplied the initial data and information for the Project's Observing Lists.

Wolfgang Steinicke (German Team Member) - (steinicke-zehnle@t-online.de)

Wolfgang Steinicke is interested in NGC/IC Data, and especially extragalactic objects, since 1975 and a core team member of the project since 1977. He has visually observed many deep-sky objects from Schauinsland Observatory near his hometown Freiburg, Germany. In 1977 he published a first "Revised Index Catalog", based on analog comparison of Dreyer's data with modern catalogs. It took another 20 years of work to produce a complete "Revised NGC/IC", whose latest version is on the net since January 2000. He has determined precise positions for all objects using the DSS, in close contact with the results of the other team members. At present Wolfgang is the leader of the german "Fachgruppe Deep-Sky" (association of deep-sky observers), which is responsible for famous Deep-Sky magazines like "Interstellarum" or the new "VdS-Journal for Astronomy" and cutting-edge observing projects. He is also co-author of the upcoming "Deep-Sky Book" and has presented a lot of papers and observing catalogs, like the "Catalog of Bright Quasars and BL Lacertae Objects", the "Catalog of Galaxy Groups", the "Leo Minor Galaxy Catalog" or a historic investigation about "Extragalactic Objects Discoverd as Variable Stars". Most of this stuff is presented in english on his homepage at www.klima-luft.de/steinicke.

Dr. Brent Archinal - (baa@casa.usno.navy.mil)

Brent Archinal (U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C.) has contributed countless hours of research time spent in the library of the U.S. Naval Observatory to help us unravel some of the more stuborn puzzles. Brent has also contributed his own personal files of NGC and IC data collect and compiled over a number of years. Brent is also the author of the Webb Society Monograph "The Non-Existent Clusters of the RNGC" which continues to be a source of puzzle solving data for the Project.

Steve Coe - (scoeandlross@sprintmail.com)

Steve Coe has transcribed, by hand, most of the First Index Catalogue data for inclusion into this web site. The 1st 900+ IC objects, listed on the IC I page of this web site, are a result of Steve's patient effort. Steve has also contributed a large amount of time to this project in the form of observing sessions aimed at the solution of some of the more troublesome legacy puzzles. Steve Coe is also a rich source of visual descriptions for a large number of NGC and IC objects.

Glen Deen - (glen.deen@gte.net)

Glen Deen has supplied the Project with massive amounts of NGC/IC demographic and ID data based upon his work with the POSS plates and MicroSky (a product of his own company). Glen has also been, and continues to be, a major contributor to the project's overall philosophy.

Jenni Kay (Australian Team Member) - (jenni@senet.com.au)

Jenni Kay has brought a meticulous and organized observing process to the Project from a geographical location not easily available to any other team member. Jenni has single handedly solved a number of celestial southern hemisphere NGC/IC puzzles through observational perserverance and meticulous historical research for the Project, and due entirely to her efforts, was awarded the prestigeous Webb Society award for 1996.

Christopher Watson - (skygx@earthlink.net)

Christopher Watson had been working with Harold Corwin for several months to correct NGC and IC identification errors in the HyperLeda database (which is the source for all the galaxies shown in SkyGX, the all-sky atlas Christopher has been working on for the past two years), when he approached the team about the possibility of joining the effort. Because Christopher's atlas project requires correctness in every aspect of its presentation of the sky, the work he and Harold have done has already been quite beneficial to several astronomical databases around the world, including that of The NGC/IC Project. After having called upon the The NGC/IC Project data for solutions to so many ID problems, and using so much of Harold's free time to help research them, Christopher decided it was time to contribute to this project in a substantive way. He is currently working with Bob Erdmann to generate and upload SkyGX format finder charts for all of the NGC and IC objects for inclusion into this web site. Christopher is an Officer of the San Diego Astronomy Association, where he serves as Corresponding Secretary and Webmaster. He is also an active member of the Chart Team and the Comparison Star Database Working Group of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).

Dave Riddle - (davecriddle@charter.net)

Dave Riddle has been an active amateur astronomer since 1968, and has developed a special fascination with our home Galaxy and the Galactic nebulae, both bright and dark. This interest has led to an ongoing project of many years to investigate a multitude obscure nebulae catalogues and consolidate, correct and cross-reference the works, with an emphasis on areas of active star formation. His efforts have resulted in what may be the most comprehensive list of bright and dark nebulae assembled to date -- with the side benefit of solving a few of the problems encountered in the NGC/IC catalogues. In the tradition of the NGC visual observers, he has traveled to some the darkest spots on the planet in an attempt observe these fascinating objects.

Bob Erdmann - (bobe@ngcic.org)

Bob Erdmann has transcribed, by hand, all of the currently existing original NGC data for inclusion into this web site. The 1st 3000+ NGC objects, listed on this web site, are a result of Bob's on-going efforts to provide the entire original NGC Catalogue in machine readable form. Bob has also transcribed the NGC introduction, NGC notes, NGC Appendix, IC I introduction, and IC II introduction for inclusion into the NGC/IC page of this web site as well as scanning the entire NGC and IC catalogues and making them available on this web site. Bob has made available his Intel Pentium based web server for use by The NGC/IC Project to host this World Wide Web site, as well as applying for and receiving the "ngcic.org, ngcic.com, and ngcic.net" Internet domain names for the sole use by the Project. Bob has also been the sole source for the uploading and annotating DSS images of the NGC and IC objects. Bob is also theWebmaster of this site, which includes all page layout, CGI applications development, and site maintenance chores. Bob is also the creator, designer and maintainer of the Project's Research NGC/IC database, as well as the interactive Public Access NGC/IC database and interactive observing list generator. Bob has also helped Dr. Corwin to sleuth numerous puzzles over the years, and some of the puzzle solutions contained within this web site are the result of Bob's efforts.