Harold Corwin

I had this to say in January 2004:

At one point, I claimed "IC 3700 is a star, verified on the print of the original plate." However, going to Wolf's position in DSS shows two very faint galaxies, probably an interacting system. Checking the print again, the smudge there, with Wolf's mark, is exactly on the position of the two faint galaxies. I'm frankly surprised they came through, but there they seem to be. Are they perhaps enhanced by a defect?

I was wrong. During my 2014-15 sweep for accurate positions, I was again struck at how faint the galaxies are, so I once again pulled out the print of Wolf's original plate. His mark is pointing directly at the star, and there is absolutely no trace of the nearby galaxy. There are defects in the area, and there is plate grain as well -- but no galaxy.

And for good reason. The SDSS magnitudes for the galaxy, converted to BVR, are B = 21.8, V = 19.8, and R = 18.9. These are well beyond the limit of Wolf's B-band plate. That plate is, however, a deep one. The star, right at the limit, has B = 20.8, V = 19.3, and R = 18.4 (again, converted from SDSS data). The redshift of the galaxy, by the way, is z = 0.3437. Were this actually the IC object, this would probably be a record.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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