Harold Corwin

IC 2440 is a star. Bigourdan's position is very good (within about four arcsec), even though he makes us work hard for it. His first observation, from 3 Feb 1894, has only a position angle given, so he is unable to work out the RA and Dec offsets (he has no note explaining the missing distance; did the weather turn bad?). He gives only a position for his comparison star without noting its source. That's OK, since we can't use it, anyway. His description, by the way, reads "Almost completely stellar object, which however is a little less sharp than stars of the same magnitude."

On 28 Feb 1903, he actually has a complete measurement, position angle and distance, from which he calculated the offsets. However, he does not give a position for his comparison star aside from its offsets, in the description column, from a BD star. Working through these offsets, it turns out to be the same star he used in 1894. And on this night, his description takes on a bit of a querelous tone: "A star of magnitude 13.3 around which I cannot, with any certainty, see nebulosity."

And, after all of that, his "nova" is a star. (Wolfgang, in his first list, chose the wrong one.)

― 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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