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Type: galaxy, Sa:
Mag: B=13.12, V=?
Size: 1.288′ x 1.122′
PA: 166°
NGC 723 = NGC 724. JH missed this one when he was putting his GC together. In his 1833 PT catalogue he notes for h167 (N724): "It is barely possible [those two words in JH's italics] that this may be III.460 [N723] with a mistake in reading the PD. When he swept this up at the Cape a few years later, he specifically noted "No other neb within 15' all around." When he published his Cape Observations, he added in parentheses, "(N.B. This remark shows that the nebula No. 167 of my former Catalogue is really identical (as there suspected) with III.460.)"
Nevertheless, his two objects are entered separately in GC without a note, so it was left to Dreyer to add a query in the NGC description: "[? = h166]".
JH and Dreyer were both right -- the two numbers do indeed refer to the same galaxy. RNGC, ESO, and SGC all carried along the equality.
Synonyms: H III-460
Discovered in 1785 by William Herschel with an 18.7-inch f/13 speculum telescope. He called it "vF, vS."
Observed by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope with an 18-inch f/13 speculum telescope. He recorded it as "pF, R, gbM, 25 arcseconds. No other neb within 15' all round."
The RNGC (Sulentic and Tifft 1973) notes that this is a 13.0 mag galaxy. Their coded description reads E,B,R,USB,PEC).
Paturel, G., Petit, C., Kogoshvili, N. et al. (1991) An extragalactic data base. IV. Errors and misprints in catalogues of galaxies. Astrophys.J.Suppl.Ser., 91(3), 371.
NGC 723 = NGC 724
Lacaille's catalogue
The Messier objects
Dunlop's catalogue
The Bennett objects
The Caldwell list
Named DSOs
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