Lewis Swift discovered IC 1919 = Sw. XI-54 on 25 Nov 1897 and recorded "eeF; pS; lE; 7 or 8 pB st[ars] n[orth] like letter V." His RA is 37 seconds too far west, but the distinctive star field verifies the identification. He first reported the object in his 5th discovery list at Lowe Observatory and his RA was off by 10 minutes (too small). Dreyer noted the discrepancy and queried if the RA was wrong in the IC2 (it wasn't, except for the 37 second error).

600/800mm - 24" (1/1/19): at 260x; either faint or fairly faint, slightly elongated, ~0.6'x0.5', nearly even surface brightness (fairly low). A mag 15 star is 1.6' SE. A mag 10 star is 5' NNW; this is the brightest and closest of 8 brighter stars scattered to the north.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb