Harold Corwin

NGC 3763 = IC 714. For once, the Leander McCormick observation, this one a micrometric one by Francis Leavenworth, referred to an unmistakeable star, is correct (though perhaps with a 10-arcsec declination error). Even A. A. Common's position is fairly close, only 12 seconds of time and one arcminute off.

So Dreyer must have been feeling cautious when he did not mention that the two entries might refer to the same object -- or perhaps he just missed them. Leavenworth does list his comparison star as "Wash. Cat. 4946" -- it is theta Crateris with a V magnitude of 4.7 -- so it would not be instantly recognizeable to someone reading through the list of Leander McCormick observations.

Also, Common has an odd note about it (at least I suppose his note refers to the star.) His full description reads "F, diffused, sp 7 stars." The galaxy is indeed "sp", but what does "7 stars" mean? I don't see any other galaxy in the area that has seven obvious stars to the northeast, so given that Common's position is not all that bad, I'll leave this particular mystery to someone else to solve. Perhaps an eyepiece view with the same power and field as Common used on his 36-inch would be more revealing than the DSS.

― NGC Notes by Harold Corwin

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