NGC 5856
NGC 5856 is an approximately 6 mag bright single star in the constellation Bear Guardian ( SAO 101379 , right ascension : 15: 07: 20.3; declination : +18: 26: 32). During an observation on May 24, 1791 Wilhelm Herschel mistakenly mistook it for a galaxy and thus got an entry in the catalog. Herschel wrote “A star 7.6m enveloped in extensive milky nebulosity. Another star 7m is perfectly free from such appearance "; while his son John noted "A star of fully 6m, with a supposed nebulous appearance about it, but of whose reality I cannot satisfy myself, as it 'blinks' with the star behind the wire".
Web links
- NGC 5856. DSO Browser, accessed April 17, 2016 .
- Courtney Seligman: New General Catalog Objects: NGC 5850 - 5899. Retrieved April 17, 2016 .
- Hartmut Frommert: Revised NGC Data for NGC 5856. SEDS, accessed on April 17, 2016 (English).