Harold Corwin

IC 4643 = NGC 6301. Dreyer credits this to Palisa, though without a specific reference. Steve Gottlieb found the observation in AN 3412 (Vol 143, p. 49, 1897) in a paper communicated by E. Weiss, then director of the Vienna Observatory. The full observation is published, including the offsets from the comparison star, so I've re-reduced the position using modern data for the star.

No surprise -- the position in the IC is good, and the brief description "F, * 12 inv" is accurate -- the star is about 0.5 arcmin southwest of the nucleus.

The NGC position, from two observations by William Herschel, is also good. William Herschel's description "A vS F * involved in eF nebulosity" is also accurate, though he listed it as a "planetary nebula". Looking at the NGC description "F, stellar", I thought perhaps CGCG 225-050 -- with its very bright bar -- might have been William Herschel's object. But William Herschel's position is almost exactly on the larger, lower-surface- brightness galaxy, and his description of the nebulosity as "eF" is a perfect match.

So, the question remains as to why Palisa and Dreyer thought Palisa's observation belonged to a new object. Until someone can see Dreyer's papers to see if he corresponded about this with Palisa, I have no answer. At a guess, this is probably just another NGC object that Dreyer missed while assembling the IC.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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