Harold Corwin

IC 5273 was apparently seen by Barnard on 13 December 1889 on the same night that he found IC 1459 (which see). But he did not send the position to Dreyer. The only clue that his log book offers is an intermediate reduction with the hour of RA being 23 instead of 22. Perhaps this uncertainty led him to withhold the discovery.

Here is what he had to say about it: "1' diam, R, gbM, 12m with[?] some small xs [stars]" [New line:] "Same as last night?" [New line:] "not in N.G.C. Cat." This more or less matches the description that Swift provided a decade later. Barnard gave a position of 22 53 26, -38 16.3 for 1889.0; this precesses to 22 59 39, -37 40.6, about two arcminutes off the modern position.

The previous night, Barnard saw a single nebula at "α 22 53 [new line] δ = -38 25 See Dec 13" from a single, crudely estimated observation followed by the note "Fogged all over here [new line] and the entire heavens blotted out --". Steve Gottlieb has noted that Barnard's description from this night, "R, 1' dia., 12th mag" also refers to IC 5273. (The sky cleared later on, and Barnard began to measure Comet Brorsen, "... but clouded all over [a]gain and cut the obs. short --". Such is winter observing in Northern California!) The observation is obviously crude, and the declination is not corrected for a known offset as it was the following night.

In any case, here is another nebula like IC 5264 (which see) found by Barnard -- but not announced -- that was later picked up by Lewis Swift.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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