Harold Corwin

IC 3295 is a star. Earlier, I had called this a plate defect. But looking more closely at the print of the original plate, and at Wolf's list, I am now convinced that the star that Wolfgang chose is actually Wolf's object. Wolf compares it to the nearby NGC 4375, saying that the two objects are equal in brightness, and that the NGC galaxy is larger than the IC object. The "defect" that I saw here appears to be little more than random plate grain.

So what about the difference in position? The star has a high proper motion (-113 mas/yr in RA and +11 mas/yr in Dec); moved back to the epoch of Wolf's plate (23 March 1903), the star's position will be close to Wolf's listed place.

Here, for the record, is my earlier note: "[This] is a plate defect on Wolf's original plate. It actually covers the star that Wolfgang chose as the IC object, but is centered enough off it to make it clearly a defect. It is also surrounded by an annulus darker than the sky background in the area. It is clearly seen on the print of the original plate."

I was obviously seeing here what I wanted to, over-interpreting the faint clues on the print, and ignoring the big ones in front of my nose.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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