Harold Corwin

IC 4205 = IC 853. Swift found IC 4205 on 23 May 1897, the same night as IC 3791 (which see) with which it shares a +5 arcmin offset in declination from the modern position. Swift's description is appropriate for the galaxy, so I'm pretty well convinced of the identity.

Swift cataloged IC 853 in June of 1890 while he was still in Rochester: it was actually found by his son Edward. The position and description are near enough to the fairly isolated galaxy to preclude any other identification.

Swift must have been well enough aware of his poor positions to check that his "novae" were indeed "novae." I suspect, though, that the lure of fame was too much for him, so that he simply accepted objects as new if his positions put them further than a few arcminutes from a known nebula. Unfortunately, there is little evidence in his papers to suggest that he often tried to recover his nebulae. He surely would have been disappointed had he made the attempt.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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