Harold Corwin

IC 838 has occasionally been called "NGC 4849A" in the astronomical literature. As far as I can tell, this started with RNGC which also has it (correctly) as Holmberg 495b. MCG and the Reference Catalogues have it right, but note that CGCG assigns the IC number to NGC 4849 itself.

Actually, the confusion starts with Spitaler's discovery note. He says of his own "Nova 61" (a free translation by me with the vital assistance of a German dictionary), "Probably identical with d'Arrest's nova NGC 4849. North- northeast from this nebula about 1 1/2 arcmin distant is another nebula, but much fainter; both together form a nice double nebula." Dreyer, fortunately, recoginized that Spitaler was correct in his surmise that Spitaler's "Nova 61" was in fact NGC 4849, so picked up the northern object as IC 838.

There is additional confusion here; see NGC 4849 and IC 3935 for that.

― IC 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