Harold Corwin

IC 872, 877, 878, and 880. Swift recorded four new nebulae on 28 April 1891, one said in his description to be preceding, and the other three following, NGC 5060. Yet his positions put all of them at least a minute of time following the NGC galaxy. Except for the first, for which there are two candidates, none of the positions, as printed or "corrected" by a minute of time, has any galaxies or asterisms at all close.

In particular, if his relative positions and descriptions of the following three objects were correct, there would be -- at least -- a striking triplet of galaxies in the area. But there isn't.

Instead, there are three individual galaxies: NGC 5060, very close to its position measured by d'Arrest (who discovered it); UGC 8349, 11 seconds preceding the corrected position for IC 872; and UGC 8361, 6 seconds following and 1.5 arcmin south of Swift's printed position for IC 872. Given that Swift includes the note about NGC 5060 in his description for IC 872, and that, for the only other nebula he found that night (IC 1016, which see), the RA is 1m 18s too large, I think that UGC 8349 is IC 872. But UGC 8361 is just as large and bright -- and therefore presumably as visible -- as UGC 8349, so I've listed it as a possibility for IC 872, also.

But for the other three, I see no reasonable candidates. I'm afraid that they, like many other of Swift's discoveries, are lost.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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