IC 3566
DSS image of IC 3566
Overlaid DSS image of IC 3566, 60' x 60' with north at top and west to the right

Aladin viewer for the region around IC 3566

Type  Non-Existent
Magnitude  
Right Ascension  12h 36' 21.8"  (2000)
Declination  11° 9' 54" N
Constellation  Virgo
Observing Notes

Harold Corwin

IC 3566 is probably a defect -- but just possibly may be a comet. Found by Frost on Harvard plate A6720 (10 May 1904), he described it as "Com., head R, tail 1.0' long at 110 deg." Adelaide Ames, in her 1930 catalogue of the Virgo Cluster, says simply "A comet" in her footnote to a list of NGC and IC objects which she could not find. She examined the same plate that Frost used.

Brian Skiff and Larry Wasserman at Lowell Observatory have run Frost's position (12 31.3 +11 43; 1900) through a comet identification program, and came up empty-handed. The nearest known comet was 10P/Tempel 2, but it was more than 15 deg away (at 13 36 11, +12 45.2) on 10 May.

On Brian Skiff's advice, I also asked Brian Marsden to run his software to check his comet catalogue. He wrote back, "I don't see any known comet that IC 3566 could have been."

So, it is almost certainly a defect on the old Harvard plate.
IC Notes by Harold Corwin
Other Data Sources for IC 3566
Nearby objects for IC 3566
30 objects found within 60'
20 Virginis IC 3467 IC 3470
IC 3481 IC 3483 IC 3490
IC 3499 IC 3509 IC 3510
IC 3525 IC 3542 IC 3548
IC 3558 IC 3572 IC 3573
IC 3577 IC 3578 IC 3604
IC 3607 IC 3608 IC 3624
IC 3625 IC 3638 Messier 58
NGC 4528 NGC 4554 NGC 4564
NGC 4567 NGC 4568 NGC 4596
Credits...

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

IC 3566