William Herschel discovered NGC 2938 = H III-963 on 2 Apr 1801 (sweep 1096) and logged "eF, S, iF." This is one of 15 far northern galaxies with large systematic errors. A corrected position matching UGC 5115 was published in 1911 using plates taken at the Greenwich Observatory with the 30-inch reflector. Dreyer repeated this position in the notes to his 1912 edition of WH's catalogues.

By examining the original sweep records, Wolfgang Steinicke found that the irregular errors were a result of the northern sweep not being aligned with the meridian (off in azimuth by 7°). The reduced positions found by Caroline Herschel, were made of course, assuming a meridian sweep. Once corrected the identifications of these 15 galaxies is revealed.

John Herschel observed what he assumed was his father's III-963, and recorded h612 as "eF; has a coarse double star 3' following." His position and description is very close to a mag 15 star. He used his father's description and added "D * f 3'." in the GC description. The MN article equates h612 with a faint star preceding the double star. So, NGC 2938 (= UGC 5115) is only equated with H. III-963, and not h612.

400/500mm - 17.5" (1/28/89): faint, fairly small, slightly elongated, even surface brightness.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb