Per Corwin, the galaxy was listed as two separate objects because of a difference of 11 seconds in the reported right ascensions; but Bigourdan soon realized that "his" galaxy was the same as Swift's, so the identity has been known for more than a century.

Per Corwin, some (including he) have misidentified IC 319 as a faint galaxy (PGC 2180624) to the southwest of the star that Bigourdan misidentified as a nebula; but there is now no doubt that the star was what Bigourdan actually saw.

Per Corwin, Herschel's position was poor; in fact, so much so that some current catalogues misidentify the very faint galaxy which coincidence places at his position as NGC 1331 = IC 324. But Herschel couldn't have seen that object, and there has been no doubt that Bigourdan's nebula is the same as Herschel's since Dreyer's paper of 1912, in which he recommended that since Bigourdan's measurement was more accurate, the IC listing be preferred to the NGC. However, tradition is to use NGC designations when available, so a discussion and images of the galaxy will be found at the NGC link above.

Per Corwin, Swift's observations, though 10 years apart, have identical descriptions and nearly identical positions; so there is no doubt they are of the same object. How both Swift and Dreyer failed to realize this is a mystery.

None of the major databases show any record of IC 337, or any object at the NED position listed above (which is the correctly precessed position of Dreyer's 1860 equinox); so the IC object may not exist. However, Steinicke lists IC 337 as being at the position of PGC 13308, presumably because Swift often had fairly accurate declinations, but less accurate right ascensions. So whether that identification is correct or not, that galaxy is listed below.

Above, a 24 arcmin wide region centered on the putative position of IC 337 (the label is exactly where the object is "supposed" to be). Note that PGC 13308, identified as IC 337 by Steinicke, lies about 20 arcmin, or only 3 seconds of right ascension, due west of the supposed position of IC 337, and may be the object Swift actually observed.

(See IC 337 for a discussion of the possibility that this is Swift's "lost" object.) Based on recessional velocity of 3085 km/sec, about 140 million light years away. Given that and apparent size of 1.05 by 0.55 arcmin, about 45 thousand light years across.

Per Dreyer, IC 342 (1860 RA 03 33 20, NPD 22 21) is "pretty bright, very small, 12th magnitude star close to the north". The position precesses to RA 03 46 47.3, Dec +68 05 49, almost dead center on the nucleus of the galaxy, so the identification is certain. IC 342 is relatively close to our Local Group, being part of the Maffei 1 Group. The brighter members of that group of galaxies (IC 342 and Maffei 1) would be among the most spectacular objects in the sky, if they weren't obscured by gas and dust in the plane of our galaxy. As it is, they are relatively hard to see, Maffei 1 not even being noticed until 1968, and Denning's note about IC 342 being "very small" probably indicating that its fainter outer regions were beyond the reach of his telescope, and what he noted was the bright core (which marks it as a Seyfert galaxy, type Sy2). IC 342's recessional velocity of 31 km/sec is far too small to provide any indication of its distance (at small distances, the random or "peculiar" velocities of galaxies relative to their neighbors are much larger than the Hubble expansion velocity), but redshift-independent distance estimates suggest that it is between 8 and 12 million light years away. Given that and its apparent size of 22 by 21 arcmin, the galaxy is about 60 thousand light years across.

There are two identifications of IC 346. This one, from Wolfgang Steinicke's catalog of NGC/IC objects, uses Dreyer's position (precessed from 1860 to 2000), at which nothing is to be found. The other, which is generally presumed to be the object actually seen, is listed immediately below. Note that Dreyer lists Ormond Stone as the discoverer, while Steinicke lists Frank Muller. This may be because Stone authored the papers announcing the observations, and in some cases Dreyer failed to consider the note specifying whether Stone, Muller or Leavenworth -- all of whom worked at Leander McCormick Observatory -- did the actual observation. (I need to contact Steinicke about this)

Above, a 12 arcmin wide region centered on IC 346, showing also IC 345, and to the northeast (upper left), the object generally considered to be what Stone (or Muller?) actually saw, PGC 13575, which see for more about that galaxy.

As noted above, there are conflicting identifications of this object. This more commonly accepted identification is based on the presumption that Dreyer's listing is accurate as to the discoverer and description of the object, but that the original positions were substantially "off" (an all too common failing of the Leander McCormick Observatory observations), so that the galaxy a sixth of a degree to the northeast of the "measured" position was the actual discovery. Based on recessional velocity of 2085 km/sec, about 95 million light years away. Given that and apparent size of 2.0 by 1.3 arcmin, about 55 thousand light years across.

A star-forming region containing as its brightest membes hot, bright bluish Main Sequence stars up to spectral type B5, whose light is scattered by dust in the surrounding region. The original observations by Safford and Barnard noted the brightest part of the nebulosity, and Safford noted the starry appearance of the region; but neither could have seen the much larger and fainter reflection nebula extending some distance from the cluster center. The cluster contains more than 300 stars of about 2 1/2 million years age. Of these, a third have optically thick circumstellar disks similar to the primordial solar nebula, and another 20% have thinner disks with much lower mass. Such studies of the statistics of circumstellar disks in clusters of various ages are expected to yield a better understanding of the dynamics of planetary formation. The cluster also contains some of the youngest and lowest mass stars positively identified as brown dwarfs. The cluster and associated nebulae are about 650 light years away, and with some members scattered over a region nearly a degree across, span perhaps 10 light years.

Above, a 12 arcmin wide region centered on IC 348, showing the stars and nebulosity presumably observed by Safford and Barnard, in its central 2 light years. (More images of the region will be added in a later iteration of this page)

The Pleiades is an open cluster surrounded by a reflection nebula caused by dust which happens to be in the region they are passing through, and has nothing to do with the dust and gas out of which they formed, a hundred million years or so ago. IC 349 is a particularly bright knot of reflecting dust near Merope (in fact, the brightest knot in the nebulosity surrounding the cluster). In the wide-field image of the Merope nebula, Barnard's nebula is completely lost in the glare of the star. However, the HST image immediately below shows the knot in detail, and the distortion in its shape caused by the pressure exerted on it by the radiation which is lighting it up. The knot is only 3500 AUs from the star, and the intense radiation lighting it up is also pushing the particles away from the star. Smaller dust particles are affected more than larger ones, so linear streams are formed, with the more massive particles near the apex (closer to the star). Eventually, most of the particles in this knot will be vaporized by the heat of the star.