NGC 618

History and Accurate Positions for the NGC/IC Objects (Corwin 2004)

NGC 618 may be NGC 614 (which is also NGC 627, which see) -- or it may be NGC 608. JH's position points at nothing, and there is no star 2 min 51 sec east of that position as his description claims. NGC 614 fits his description ("pB, pL, bM") but the fairly bright star follows by only 55 sec. Is there perhaps a combination of transcription errors and/or typos in JH's offset to the star? I'm thinking perhaps that the superscript "m" on the 2 in his description stands for "magnitude" rather than "minute." The star, of course, is not 2nd magnitude -- this is where the error would have to occur. Whatever the case, there is certainly an error in JH's position for the galaxy.

Is his object NGC 608? This is not quite as likely; N608 is the fainter of the two galaxies in the area. Also, N618 was found during a different sweep (102) than NGC 608 and NGC 614 (both sweep 106), and different again from N627 (sweep 100), the other "missing" object in the area. I'm tempted to simply equate N618 with N608, and N627 with N614. But the relative magnitudes, and the fact that N618 and N627 were found during different sweeps argues in favor of JH having seen only the brightest object during each sweep.

So, I note the possibility of the identity of N618 with N614 or with N608, but would not bet my Pentium on it!

Historical observations

John Herschel

This object, recorded by Sir John Herschel in his General Catalogue as number 364, and as number 136 in his list of Slough Observations. He described it as pretty bright, pretty large, brighter in the middle.

NGC/IC Dreyer (1888, 1895, 1908)

GC 364, however, was never found at Birr Castle, nor by d'Arrest. Schonfeld, observing at Mannheim, Germany, recorded it on two occasions as being very faint, extremely small, similar to a 13th magnitude star.

Birr Castle/Lord Rosse

An observer with the 72-inch f/8.8 speculum telescope at Birr Castle noted "Sought for four times; not found."

Burnham, S.W. () Publ.Lick.Obs

"Observations of Nebulae with the 36-inch Refractor of the Lick Observatory", p 168.

The catalgoue place was carefully examined without finding the least trace of any nebulous ojbect. I found two faint nebulae a short distance north ... NGC 608 and NGC 614. ... On a subsequent night this region was carefully gone over, with the same result so far as No 618 is concerned. There is certainly nothing in the catalogue place, and this object has probably been confounded with one of those mentioned above. This is also the case with No 627 .. It is safe to sat that Nos 618 and 627 do not exist, and that the observations credited to them really belong to Nos 608 and 614.

Published comments

Sulentic & Tifft (1973)

The RNGC (Sulentic and Tifft 1973) notes that this is a nonexistent object. Their coded description reads NF DC.