Andrew Cooper
Jul 17, 2023    Oregon Star Party, Ochoco Mts, OR (map)
25cm f/4.5 Newtonian, Holoholo @ 71x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 7 Moon: 0%

Large and faint, difficult to locate, a 15' diffuse glow in very rich galactic starfield, best seen with averted vision, somewhat extended north to south, no structure noted, found by locating e1 Sgr and e2 Sgr and sweeping 1.5° northeast

Andrew Cooper
Oct 7, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 76x
Seeing: 5 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

Big! faint! a diffuse glow about 15' in diameter, seen best when panning across, no obvious structure, no core noted, no boundaries obvious simply fading into the background in all directions

Andrew Cooper
Apr 18, 2010    Hale Pohaku, HI (map)
46cm f/4.5 Newtonian, Deep Violet @ 60x
Seeing: 6 Transparency: 7 Moon: 0%

Large! quite faint, at higher powers the galaxy is easily missed, a large patch of faint glow, extended north-south about 2:1, no structure or core noted

Andrew Cooper
Jun 5, 2005    Vekol Ranch, Maricopa Co., AZ (map)
46cm f/4.5 Deep Violet

Large, faint, easy in the 18", an oval patch of soft light, no core, no structure, extended 2:1 north-south, thick star field

Harold Corwin

IC 4895 = NGC 6822, which also see. Dreyer condenses Wolf's description to "group of nebulae, 25 arcmin in diameter." Wolf notes that "NGC 6822" and "IC 1308" are on the northern edge of his group, so he and Dreyer apparently took Barnard's position to be for one of the HII regions (like IC 1308) on the northern side of the galaxy. This explains the entry in IC2, but is at odds with the NGC description "vF, L, E, dif" (see the note under NGC 6822 for more on this).

The main difference in the observations, of course, is that Barnard discovered the galaxy visually, while Wolf recorded it on one of his early Heidelberg plates.

Herbert Howe also apparently picked up just one of the two HII regions. His short note in MNRAS 60, 130, 1899 reads in full "On two nights I called this 'vS,' while Barnard, who discovered it with a 6 inch refractor, called it 'vL.' This is the source of Dreyer's IC2 note for NGC 6822.

― 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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