Harold Corwin

IC 1737 is only two stars. Bigourdan's place falls south of the brighter, western of the pair. He measured it only one night in 1891 (his two measurements on that night disagree by over 10 arcsec), but claimed to have recovered it on another night in 1903.

In spite of the agreement with his description, the galaxy (with 3 stars close west) 7 arcmin to the south -- which I had chosen in the early 70s as I1737 -- is almost certainly not his object. He used the same comparison star to measure NGC 687 on the same two nights he saw this; his position for N687 is within an arcsecond of the modern value. This makes a 7 arcmin Dec error highly unlikely, and the RA is also three seconds off.

Malcolm caught this one, too. He has sharp eyes, thank goodness!

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

Drawings, descriptions, and CCD photos are copyright Andrew Cooper unless otherwise noted, no usage without permission.

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