Lewis Swift discovered IC 1149 = Sw. 10A-8 = Sw. XI-182 on 16 Jun 1892 and reported, "eeF, pS, R, in centre of rhombus of 4 stars, v diff." His position is close west of UGC 10108, which is surrounded by several stars, although a trapezoid of 4 stars is a better description. This galaxy is Swift's final catalogued discovery made in Rochester before moving to Lowe Observatory on Echo Mountain in Southern California. His first discoveries there were in 1895. Interestingly, that year he discovered a comet, while searching for "the last nebula discovered at the Warner Observatory...just prior to the dismantling of that institution, had never been catalogued or published, so on the morning of August 21st, the nebula being near the meridian, it occurred to me to look it up and secure, perhaps, a more accurate position...…I saw to my astonishment a beautiful comet instead of the expected nebula." The comet's position that night was close to UGC 313, but I have no other evidence that was Swift's target.

Swift reobserved IC 1149 again on 16 Sep 1896 from Echo Mountain and reported it in his 11th discovery list with a slightly modified position (25 seconds of RA too small) and description ("in center of trapezium"), probably to make sure Dreyer didn't miss these discoveries. Howe measured an accurate position in 1900 and suggested Swift's two entries were identical. He described the surrounding stars as a rhomboid [trapezoid] and measured the separations and position angles. All 5 objects Swift recorded as "new" that night were reobservations of objects he found in 1892, when he only reported 8 new objects in a short list between his formal 10th and 11th lists.

600/800mm - 24" (7/18/17): at 375x; fairly faint, fairly small, slightly elongated NNW-SSE, ~30"x25", slightly brighter core, uneven surface brightness in halo. Located 31' SE of STF 1988, a 2" pair of evenly matched mag 7.6/7.8 stars. The pair was cleanly split at 375x.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb