Harold Corwin

IC 5336 belongs to (perhaps) both objects in a pair of faint galaxies in Abell 2626. Javelle's mean position falls between the two galaxies, but is closer to the southeastern of the pair. That is about 0.2 magnitudes brighter than the northeastern, but has a lower surface brightness.

Javelle comments that the object is extended along the meridian, though I think that he swapped his descriptions for IC 5336 and IC 5337. Here the descriptions as he gives them (my translation):

  J 1453 = IC 5336  Faint, elongated following the meridian, 25" to 30" [in
                    diameter], ill-defined, [has the] appearance of a very
                    slightly condensed whitish spot.

  J 1454 = IC 5337  Faint, nearly round, 20" to 25" [in diameter], gradually
                    condensed, shows a nucleus of 15th magnitude.

IC 5337 is indeed seen edgewise extended along the meridian, and might indeed appear "ill-defined", so I am pretty sure that the descriptions are indeed switched.

However, this still doesn't help us to decide which of the pair Javelle actually saw. Is there a systematic offset in his positions, or anything else having to do with them that might help us? First, he has observed three galaxies (IC 5336, 5337, and 5338) with respect to the same comparison star on two nights. The differences in the measured positions average -0.62 seconds in RA and +7.2 arcseconds in Dec, both significant night-to-night differences. Second, the differences between Javelle's positions and the modern positions -- for three other galaxies (IC 5331, IC 5337, and IC 5338) observed on the same night (24 November 1899), and referred to the same star (BD +20 5355) -- are +0.27 seconds in RA and +0.13 arcseconds in RA. Given the 1-sigma standard deviations (+-0.57 seconds and +-4.41 arcseconds), these differences are not significant.

In other words, knowing the offsets and accuracy of Javelle's positions does not, unfortunately, help us decide which object he saw. My guess is the southeastern of the pair, but that is all it is, a guess. Perhaps work at the eyepiece would help with this case.

In the end, I'm going to assign the IC number to both objects with directional suffixes. This is clearly not an ideal solution, but is perhaps the best we can do at the moment.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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