Harold Corwin

IC 4552 is almost certainly identical with UGC 9945. Swift found this the same night, 21 June 1897, as he found IC 4540 (which see). Here, however, we have a reasonable candidate matching his description, if not very well his position.

Swift's description "eF, pS, R; near the 1st of 6 or 8 sts in a curved line" is accurate for U9945 -- the curved line of stars stretches to the east for 10 to 11 arcmin, just enough to nearly reach the edge of Swift's 33-arcmin field and be a striking sight with the galaxy centered. It is also further evidence of Swift's declining astrometric skills; his position is 4 minutes of time and 6.9 arcmin off.

Other candidate galaxies, closer to Swift's nominal position, are fainter and do not have obvious lines of stars nearby. These include NGC 5952, NGC 5955, and UGC 9886. I don't think that we can stretch Swift's description to fit any of these as well as U9945. Nevertheless, I've put colons on the IC number as a flag of the poor position match.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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