Harold Corwin

IC 5112 and IC 5113. Found by Bigourdan near the nominal position of NGC 7074 (which see), these are both either single stars or asterisms of faint stars. Bigourdan has only one micrometric observation for each of these, and neither position points directly to anything on the sky. However, his position for IC 5112 is 12 arcsec south of a faint star, and his position for IC 5113 is about the same distance northeast of another faint (though brighter) star (I earlier noted this star as a blended double; it is not a double in any of the three DSS images).

In both cases, there are very faint galaxies (16th and 17th magnitude) just over an arcminute from the nominal positions, but Bigourdan could probably not have seen these with his 30-cm refractor. Nevertheless, I've listed the galaxies as well as the stars in the position table. Here is another case where visual confirmation would be useful.

Of course, these may be additional cases of Bigourdan's "fausse images", "objects" just beyond the limit of his vision. We all have bad nights...

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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

A complete list of credits and sources can be found on the about page