Harold Corwin

IC 1301 is almost certainly equal to IC 4867. Dreyer has copied into the IC2 Notes a comment of Howe's to the effect that the north polar distance of IC 1301 may be 36 arcmin too large. Dreyer goes on to suggest that the nebula is therefore probably IC 4867 -- which, however, is still nearly fifteen arcmin away from Swift's "corrected" position.

Howe's comment was made in the same note in which he commented on IC 1300 (which see), and had its as its source the same letter from Lewis Swift. Howe says, "In the same letter, Swift states that the declination of (1301) is about +49 40, which is 35 arcmin greater than the declination (for 1900.0) computed from the Index Catalogue." This would make the position for 1950.0 19 25 21, +49 47.2. As I suggested above, this is still about 15 arcmin from I4867, found by Burnham while he was observing a double star. How did Dreyer make the connection?

I think he probably realized that two bright stars mentioned in both Swift's and Burnham's descriptions were identical, especially since one of these is Burnham's double. Swift's description reads: "eeF, vS, R; 2B and 1F * in line nr f, nearest * nf close D with 300." Burnham's description as abbreviated for the 2nd IC is: "S; 2 sts 7 nf 3 arcmin." Swift did not know that the double was the star later observed by Burnham, but Dreyer certainly suspected it.

So, this chain of reasoning makes IC 1301 = IC 4867 = CGCG 256-017sw (the northeastern component, about an arcminute away, is fainter). CGCG suggests that IC 1301 is CGCG 256-018; this is probably not the case as the galaxy is near neither Swift's original position, nor his "corrected" position quoted by Howe. It does have three stars following, but all are faint and none of them is double.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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