Harold Corwin

IC 2611 may be a star. Bigourdan's measured place for it, from just one setting of his micrometer, is 30 arcsec south of the actual position. Did he make a measurement or reduction error somewhere along the line? Or is this perhaps another of his "fausse images"? See IC 2603 and IC 2610 for more on these illusory "nebulae" that sometimes appear in Bigourdan's lists.

Dorothy Carlson was the first to suggest the identity with the star in her 1940 paper of NGC and IC corrections from Mt. Wilson.

A curious footnote: Immediately following Bigourdan's single measurement of this star is another object called "Nova?" in his table. It has an estimated position of +5.8 seconds, -1 arcmin 25 arcsec from the same comparison star (BD +10 2241) that Bigourdan used for the IC object. This "nova?" does not appear in either the NGC or IC. This is a good thing as nothing exists in the place where Bigourdan suspected it. His description is "Object only glimpsed" and his position, reduced and precessed to J2000.0, is 10 52 44.3, +10 07 47.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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