Lewis Swift discovered IC 1100 = Sw. IX-45 on 22 Jun 1889 and logged "vF; pS; lE; bet 2 stars." His position is 1.2' NW of UGC 9729. This galaxy was probably discovered by William Herschel on 26 Apr 1789 (sweep 930) and noted H II-818 as "pF, cL, R, vgbM." CH's reduced position is 52 sec of RA east and 2' south of UGC 9729. Dreyer notes in the 1912 "Scientific Papers", that the listed RA in GC and NGC was 2 tmin too large (the actual error is ~ 2 min 45 sec). Because of this error, Bigourdan and d'Arrest were unable to locate NGC 5881 and Swift assumed his rediscovery was new, though Dreyer noted in his "Scientific Papers of William Herschel" that "II-818 is probably = IC 1100."

UGC, MCG, CGCG and RC3 all label this galaxy as IC 1100 (because of the unambiguous position) instead of NGC 5881. I wrote up this case in RNGC Corrections #6 and it is discussed in Corwin's notes.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/14/96): faint, fairly small, elongated 4:3 WSW-ENE, 40"x30", weak concentration. Bracketed by a mag 13 star 52" SW of center and a mag 12 star 1.8' NNE. NGC identification uncertain (poor position from WH) and this galaxy is identified as IC 1100 (from Swift) in UGC, MCG, CGCG and RC3.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb