Harold Corwin

IC 4339. We had taken this as the 12th magnitude star northwest of IC 4341 without looking at Javelle's observation carefully. His position is over a minute of arc away from the star (which, by the way, he mentions in his description of IC 4341), and his description "Faint, nearly round, 20 to 25 [arcseconds in diameter], mottled" does not match a star at all.

If I reverse the sign of his north polar distance offset, his position falls within an arcminute of IC 4340. Is this perhaps the object he observed? (There is nothing at any of the other offsets implied by sign changes.) If so, there remain unresolved problems with his observation. So, question marks abound here!

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

Courtney Seligman

Per Dreyer, IC 4339 (= Javelle #1276, 1860 RA 13 47 26, NPD 51 46.2) is "faint, small, round, mottled but not resolved". The position precesses to RA 13 53 28.8, Dec +37 32 22, right on the star listed above, so the identity is certain. However, presumably due to its proximity to IC 4341 (which see for an image), IC 4339 is sometimes misidentified as a duplicate of IC 4341 (hence the warning above).

― Courtney Seligman, Celestial Atlas

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