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NGC 2356 is most likely NGC 2355 with a 10 arcmin error in declination. There is no other group of stars in the area that fits WH's description "A pretty rich and compressed cluster of stars" as well. JH did not see NGC 2356, but found NGC 2355 easily. Note, too, that WH's position for N2355 is about 1m 40s too far west; Dreyer discusses the circumstances of WH's observation of N2355 a bit more in his 1912 edition of WH's papers.
Synonyms: H VII-006
Discovered in 1785 by William Herschel with an 18.7-inch f/13 speculum telescope. He called it "a pretty rich and compressed cluster of stars."
The SAC database comments: "HURST: 10in, three 11m stars - a few faint"
The RNGC (Sulentic and Tifft 1973) notes that this is a nonexistent object. Their coded description reads NOCL S.
Lacaille's catalogue
The Messier objects
Dunlop's catalogue
The Bennett objects
The Caldwell list
Named DSOs
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