Harold Corwin

NGC 1677 = NGC 1659 with a 5 minute error in its RA. It is not IC 2099 as I had supposed when I went over the field for SEGC. Here is the story.

Swift found 14 nebulae on the night of 22 October 1886. In general, his positions are pretty good, being on average out by +5 seconds in RA and just +17 arcsec in declination. However, these numbers exclude two objects, NGC 1689 and NGC 1677. Both have RA's in Swift's fifth list (and in the NGC) which are 5 minutes of time too large. (In addition, another group of four objects from this night, NGC 652, NGC 1450, NGC 1509 = IC 2026, and NGC 1594 = IC 2075, have a mean RA offset of +15 seconds of time).

The identifications are secured by Swift's declinations (which are within 20 arcsec in both cases), and by his descriptions which are accordant with the Herschel's (for NGC 1659) and with Stephan's (for NGC 1667). In addition, these are among the brightest three or four objects that Swift found this night, and thus are the least likely to have been overlooked by other observers.

― NGC Notes by Harold Corwin

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

A complete list of credits and sources can be found on the about page