Harold Corwin

NGC 58 = NGC 47. The brightest (NGC 50) of the three nebulae (NGC 47 and NGC 54 are the others) in this group was found in 1866 by Brother Ferrari at the Collegio Romano. 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 NGC 47 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 NGC 58 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, NGC 47, 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 Notes by Harold Corwin

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