Harold Corwin

IC 2215 is another of Bigourdan's illusory objects. There is nothing in his position, though two stars are within 30 arcsec. Perhaps these were enough to suggest the faint "cluster" to him.

He used the same comparison star for this as he did for NGC 2498. His position for his "nova" is almost exactly on a line between the comparison star and the NGC galaxy. So, whatever he thought he saw, it was clearly in his view for some time. Because of this, I do not think that he misidentified his comparison star. Nor is there any trace of a cluster at the other places around the star if he had made a sign error in one or another of his offsets.

So, unless there is an error that I haven't yet found in his reductions (see IC 2216 for just such an error), this object must have been an illusion (or a comet, but Bigourdan's description pretty much rules that out).

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

Harold Corwin

IC 2215 is another of Bigourdan's illusory objects. There is nothing in his position, though two stars are within 30 arcsec. Perhaps these were enough to suggest the faint "cluster" to him.

He used the same comparison star for this as he did for NGC 2498. His position for his "nova" is almost exactly on a line between the comparison star and the NGC galaxy. So, whatever he thought he saw, it was clearly in his view for some time. Because of this, I do not think that he misidentified his comparison star. Nor is there any trace of a cluster at the other places around the star if he had made a sign error in one or another of his offsets.

So, unless there is an error that I haven't yet found in his reductions (see IC 2216 for just such an error), this object must have been an illusion (or a comet, but Bigourdan's description pretty much rules that out).

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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