NGC 1554

NGC 1554, Struve's Lost Nebula, is a list entry in the New General Catalogue of Nebulae compiled by John L. E. Dreyer, which was discovered by the German-Russian astronomer Otto Wilhelm von Struve and confirmed by Heinrich Louis d'Arrest^[1]. Dreyer describes it as

!!! var, S, R, Nn = *13

which in NGC:s encoding is expanded to

a magnificent or otherwise interesting object, variable, small, round, nucleus north of a star of the 13:th magnitude

The identification is uncertain: many sources think it is related to NGC 1555, Hind's Variable Nebula, but at NGC 1554:s coordinates, (epoch J2000) 04^h 22^m 00.0^s +19° 36′ 00″ there is neither a nebula nor a star.

References

1. ^ www.DavidDarling.info: Struve’s Lost Nebula (NGC 1554)