Here are my observing notes for every non-stellar object in the entire New General Catalogue (NGC) of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, which was compiled by John Louis Dreyer in 1888, as well as Dreyer’s first Index Catalogue, published in 1895. The famous NGC includes 7840 entries discovered visually up to that date, the majority from William Herschel and his son John Herschel during systematic survey of the northern and southern skies from England and South Africa. The database also includes visual notes on the roughly 1500 objects in the IC I. This represents the only observing journal of the entire NGC and IC I by a single observer, covering the northern to southern celestial poles. In total, there are visual descriptions for 10,357 NGC/IC designations. Beyond the NGC and IC, you’ll find observing notes on thousands of additional galaxies, clusters, planetaries, emission and reflection nebulae, and double stars.
In 2014, I completed a 35-year project of observing every NGC object north of -41 degrees declination. These roughly 6,800 NGCs were accessible from my home in northern California, though some scraped the southern horizon. At that time I had also covered most of the far southern sky from several previous trips to Australia, with 300 NGCs remaining that were not visible from the United States. After a few additional observing trips to the southern hemisphere, I completed the last remaining 34 NGCs during the October 18th, 2017 OzSky Star Safari, which took place on the Markdale Homestead, a large working sheep ranch and country estate in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales.
After that milestone, I've started to focus on observing objects in the first Index Catalogue (IC I), which contains 1529 additional discoveries made between 1888 and 1894. The vast majority of these are faint galaxies with blue magnitudes as low as 18th magnitude. Over half were found by the French astronomer Stéphane Javelle, who observed with a 30-inch f/23 refractor at the Nice observatory in southern France. E.E. Barnard and Sherburne Burnham discovered the very faintest IC I galaxies in an Ursa Major cluster known as AGC 1783 using the 36-inch Lick Observatory refractor. By 2014, I only had a few hundred objects remaining and I completed the catalog (except for a handful of photographic nebulae near the Pleiades) on October 18th, 2025, exactly 8 years to the day after finishing the NGC. This time I was observing in northern California on a cattle ranch with my 24-inch and the last object observed was IC 1493 = LEDA 1458643, a faint smudge in Pegasus (B = 16.7, V = 15.9).
All of my observations and notes were made at fairly dark observing sites used by clubs and individuals in the San Francisco bay area, as well as various northern California star parties, such as Lassen National Park and the Golden State Star Party (GSSP) in Adin. In addition, a large number of summer observations were made at high elevation sites in the Sierras or the White Mountains east of Bishop (Grandview campground). Generally, observations were made with SQM readings from 21.3–21.8. Deep southern objects were observed on 11 weeklong observing trips to Australia using 14-inch to 30-inch scopes that were provided by Zane Hammond at his “Magellan Observatory”(now closed) and at several OzSky Star Safaris. Some southern observations were also made using Ray Cash's 13-inch travel scope that I brought to Costa Rica and with a C-8 from southern Baja.
I began taking notes on the Messier objects using a 6-inch f/5 reflector in 1978 and a C-8 in 1980. Two years later I started exploring fainter NGCs with a 13.1-inch Odyssey I. The vast majority of my notes, though, were made with a 17.5-inch f/4.5 homemade dob (1987–2002) and an 18-inch f/4.3 Starmaster (2003–2011). Since 2012 I've used a 24-inch f/3.7 Starstructure, as well as a 14.5-inch f/4.3 Starmaster. Very detailed notes on over 650 NGC and IC objects were made using Jimi Lowrey's 48-inch f/4.0 mega-sized dobsonian from west Texas. In general, you'll find multiple observations of many NGCs, so their visual appearances can be compared through a variety of apertures.
All of the NGC/IC identifications have been checked for historical accuracy as part of the NGC/IC Project. At the end of my visual observations of each NGC, I've included historical discovery information such as the observer's name, date, telescope, and the original discovery descriptions. Modern catalogues discrepancies and errors are also discussed in detail.
You'll also find my observations of over 1600 galaxies from the Uppsala General Catalogue (UGC). These are generally fainter galaxies at least 1.0 arcminute in diameter that were discovered on the first National Geographic–Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS). Additional galaxy catalogues include the Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies (MCG), Catalogue of Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies (CGCG), and the Principal Galaxy Catalogue (PGC). For a comprehensive list of common deep sky catalogues of different types of objects see this page.
I want to acknowledge the investigative work of Dr. Harold Corwin and Dr. Wolfgang Steinicke, who I've communicated with for many years on a number of identification problems. Harold Corwin provides precise positions and extensive historical notes on thousands of NGC and IC objects. Wolfgang Steinicke, who has authored several books on William Herschel and history of the NGC, has a website with biographical information on 172 NGC/IC astronomers, as well as a number of historically accurate catalogues in .xls format. For those interesting in learning more on the history of the NGC, I highly recommend Wolfgang's book "Observing and Cataloguing Nebulae and Star Clusters".
Steve Gottlieb
1/1/26
