Harold Corwin

IC 1232 is probably IC 1226. Swift gives the RA only to a full minute of time with a question mark appended (his position is "16 46? +46 16.7" for 1890.0). He adds a note of explanation to his description: "Driving clock failed."

Given the rest of his description, "eeeF, S, iR; B * with distant companion nr sf", however, we can scour the area for objects that he might have seen. The most obvious candidate is IC 1226, eight minutes preceding Swift's nominal RA. The stars, however, are southwest, not southeast as Swift would have them. The declination is appropriate, though (just 4 arcmin out), as is the description. So, I'm going to suggest that Swift made a simple mistake in his placement of the neighboring stars. He's confused his directions before, so I'm not surprised at the probability here -- especially given the broken clock which must have disconcerted him a bit. It certainly would have me!

In August 2016, Yann Pothier sent a note suggesting that Arp 312 = VV 197 = CGCG 252-004 = PGC 59071/2 -- a double galaxy, the brightest in a group -- is Swift's object. This has the advantage of having an RA that is only 37 seconds off (rather than eight minutes), but the disadvantage of a +38 arcminute Declination error, though this could be a 40 arcminute digit error. However, the major advantage of this object is the "B * with distant companion nr sf" -- the star, HD 152238, is there; its "distant companion" is just an arcminute north-northwest. If Swift was distracted by his broken clock drive, an error in his recorded Declination could be one result.

Given the good match to the description and more or less explicable errors in both RA and Dec, I've elevated this to a probably identity, and have dropped the IC 1226 suggestion back to a possible identity.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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