Harold Corwin

IC 1178 is usually taken as the northwestern, brighter galaxy of the pair -- IC 1181 is the other. However, Swift's position is not very good, and the fact that he does not mention either object in his description of the other, casts some doubt on the identification. If, for example, his declination is 10 arcmin too far south, then IC 1178 could be the object at 16 03 15.6, +17 54 13 (often incorrectly called NGC 6054). This particular mistake is unlikely, however, as the galaxy to the north is a full magnitude fainter. It's possible that IC 1178 is identical to IC 1181, though since Swift claims that he found the two on the same night, this seems unlikely.

So, 1) having nothing to go on but Swift's observations, 2) since there is no other object near his position that could be IC 1178, and 3) since the identification is in common use in the current astronomical literature, I retain the identification, though note that it is uncertain.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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