Harold Corwin

NGC 7804 is a double star. Dreyer, in a note in NGC itself, says that "von Engelhardt in 4 obs could only see a D* without nebulosity." Once Burnham turned the 36-inch at Lick on the object, the question was settled for Dreyer. His IC1 note is quite firm: "To be struck out, only a F double star without nebulosity (Burnham)." This is indeed what we see today.

Wolfgang has a short biography of K. Gottfried Schweizer, the discoverer of this object. Briefly, Schweizer was director of the Moscow University Observatory beginning when he found NGC 7804 in October of 1860. Though I have not seen it, his observation, and a follow-up by the next director of the Observatory, F.A. Bredikhin, are listed in the Moscow Observations, Vol. II, book 2, pp 115 and 119. The story is on pp 232-233 of Wolfgang's 2010 book. The telescope, by the way, was a 23-cm Merz refractor. It must have been quite similar to the 9.5-inch Merz that Brother Ferrari was using at the Collegio Romano at about the same time (see NGC 7667).

― NGC Notes by Harold Corwin

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