Stephane Javelle discovered IC 2431 = J. 3-1068 on 24 Feb 1896 with the 30-inch refractor at the Nice Observatory. His micrometric position is accurate. Javelle's third catalogue gives the observation date as 24 Feb 1906. If that's the case, it's his last discovery and a couple of years after the previous one.

UGC classifies IC 2431 as a quadruple system. The V-V Atlas of Interacting Galaxies II, has the note ""Browning". Three?" The name "Browning" probably refers to a Browning pistol, which it resembles in the atlas.

900/1200mm - 48" (2/21/12): at 488x this compact 25" quartet was resolved into a trio of adjacent, extremely small "knots" (galaxies) each ~8" diameter, within a common halo. One or two seemed to have a stellar nucleus including the knot on the south side, which corresponds with SDSS J090434.82+143536.3 = LEDA 200246 (V = 15.7). The other two knots are very close west and northwest (LEDA 200245). A mag 12 star is 1.7' NNE. The seeing was fairly poor at the time of the observation, so I needed to wait for steady moments to resolve the components.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb