Harold Corwin

IC 1606 is also lost. I first noted that during work on SEGC, then finally did a thorough search in February 2014. Swift says in his big AN 3517 collection, "eeF, pS; nearly bet a 7m * p and a 9m * nf, nearer the latter." He gives a discovery date of 14 September 1895 (in AJ 17, 27, the discovery date is 18 December 1895, while in PASP 8, 304 the date becomes 18 September 1895). There is nothing at all near his discovery position, nor is there anywhere in the area the configuration of stars and the nebula that he describes.

The nearest such configuration involves three stars: the 7th mag star is at (all positions for B1950, estimated from HEASARC's SkyView) 00 53 00.2, -12 49 23; the 9th mag star is at 00 53 35.7, -12 47 01; and the third fainter star, standing in for Swift's nebula, is at 00 53 30.1, -12 49 17. This is pure speculation, of course; I doubt that this is what Swift was looking at.

I also checked at the usual digit errors (+ or - 1 and 10 minutes of time, + or - 1, 5, and 10 degrees of arc), and found nothing. Perhaps you will have better luck.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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