Harold Corwin

IC 1066 and IC 1067. Steve Gottlieb has found that this pair was seen at Parsonstown by R.J. Mitchell in 1855. Though not "discovered" until 28 May 1891 by Javelle at Nice, Mitchell actually saw the galaxies on 16 May 1855 with Lord Rosse's 72-inch Leviathan when he mistook them for NGC 5765, itself an interacting pair. Mitchell's description of the IC nebulae and five nearby stars is exactly correct for the field. He also has a sketch, reproduced by Dreyer in Lord Rosse's 1880 monograph, which is a near-perfect match for what we see on the sky.

Dreyer recognized that there is a problem with Mitchell's observations, since Mitchell has yet a third observation on 10 May 1855. That one is apparently of NGC 5765 and matches the appearance of that pair pretty well. Faced with these two discordant observations, Dreyer wrote in the monograph

These 2 neb [seen 16 May 1855] are evidently different from those in the previous observation [of 10 May]; the description does not agree with any known nebulae near the place of h 1880 [NGC 5765]. On May 3, 1856, the same pair were found when searching for h 1885 [NGC 5775], and a diagram was made which agrees perfectly with the one [from 16 May] reproduced above.

However, with no positions for these two nebulae, Dreyer apparently did not feel that he could include them in the NGC.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

Drawings, descriptions, and CCD photos are copyright Andrew Cooper unless otherwise noted, no usage without permission.

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