Harold Corwin

IC 1802, 1803, and 1804 are three nebulae found by Barnard and, as with many others, not published but sent directly to Dreyer. So, the IC positions and descriptions are all that we have to work with to identify these objects.

In the case of IC 1802, there is nothing at the nominal position, but 33 seconds of time following and 2.2 arcmin south is a galaxy that has a "* 11 np 1'". We can be fairly confident that this is Barnard's object as none of the other galaxies in the area has a similarly bright star to the northwest.

If we apply this same offset to the positions for IC 1803 and IC 1804, we find a pair of galaxies oriented northwest-southeast, not southwest-northeast as Barnard's positions have them. IC 1803 is also sketchily described ("Stell N"), and IC 1804 carries no description at all. But they are the second brightest and brightest, respectively, in a small group of galaxies.

So, I am reasonably sure that Barnard saw these two objects. However, which one has which IC number, I am not so sure. I've put the numbers on in RA order, assuming that the declinations are reversed. But it could be the other way, so I've put colons on the numbers.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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