Harold Corwin

IC 1240 is probably one of Bigourdan's imaginary objects. He describes it briefly as an "Object suspected [only for] an instant. The sky is beautiful." His position is not measured, only estimated at position angle 240 degrees, distance 3 arcmin from a star he calls "Arg. OE, 16761". The position he gives for the star is 2 arcmin south of the real position. I get the impression that he was not tremendously interested in this object.

For a few minutes, I thought that the star an arcmin north of his position might be the object he saw. But the position angle and distance Bigourdan estimated probably rule this out. He correctly reduced them to offsets in RA and Dec, and I see no way to squeeze the extra arcminute out of the reduced position. So, another twinkle in the eye just beyond the limit of visibility.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin