Harold Corwin

IC 2489 is lost; there is nothing at Barnard's position. This is another of his unpublished objects, appearing only in IC2, so we have just the IC position (given in the big position table) and the description ("pF, R") to go on.

I see only two possibilities on the POSS1: MCG -01-25-002 and MCG -01-25-034. The second galaxy matches the meager description better, but it is 12m 24s east of Barnard's position -- this seems a bit of a long shot to me.

The first galaxy does somewhat better at only 1 minute 35 seconds east and 9.6 arcmin north (perhaps within observational error of being 1 min 30 sec and 10 arcmin). However, it is clearly elongated and has several stars nearby, as well as a couple of other fainter galaxies. While the position is off by nearly the sort of "integer" numbers I like, the description doesn't fit well. So, I've put neither into the table.

I've also looked at 0.5x0.5 DSSR2 fields at 1-degree, 2-degrees, 3-degrees, etc up to 10-degrees different from Barnard's declination; and 10-, 20-, and 30-time-minute, and 1-hour differences from his RA. There are galaxies in many of these fields that Barnard could have seen, but additional errors (not just digit errors) in the positions would be required. It's possible, of course, that a combination of digit errors in both RA and Dec would turn up candidates, but I haven't tried any of those fields yet.

So, another, still lost nebula.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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