Harold Corwin

NGC 3966 = NGC 3986. d'A's position (from a single observation) is one of the few verifiably bad ones in his list. His description fits NGC 3986 perfectly, and he notes the unresolved 12th magnitude double just southwest exactly in its place relative to the galaxy. Finally, he comments, "Found while looking for [NGC 3986]; this is either a nova, or my RA is inexplicably erroneous." His RA is 1m 30s off, and his declination is 10 arcmin off, too.

The galaxy chosen by Max Wolf as NGC 3966 is actually IC 2981 (which see as it has problems of its own). Wolf's note about NGC 3966 in his 8th list was copied into the IC2 notes by Dreyer, apparently during its final stages of preparation since Dreyer did not include any of the 8th list objects in the IC itself.

― NGC Notes by Harold Corwin

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