Harold Corwin

NGC 6 = NGC 20. On the night of 20 September 1885, Lewis Swift found six objects. Four of these (NGC 19, NGC 21, NGC 7831, and NGC 7836; see the notes for these, too) have mean offsets in their positions as published by Swift, from the correct positions, of -1m 10s in RA and -8m 08s in Dec. A fifth found later in the night, NGC 801, has offsets of +19s and +0.9m; Swift clearly "re-zeroed" his telescope in the interim.

The sixth object, NGC 6, shares the right ascension offsets of the first four, but its declination is about 45 arcmin too small. Its identity with NGC 20 is secured by Swift's note "... one of 5 sts which point to it is pretty near." The unmistakeable line of five stars stretches about 2 arcmin to the east; Swift's "pretty near" star is about 15 arcsec east of the galaxy.

― NGC Notes by Harold Corwin

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