I was observing tonight working my way through a short list of NGC objects in Antlia and slewed the 'scope to NGC 2973 which, according to Steve Gottlieb's notes here:
was a double recorded by Herschel but is misidentified in most versions of the NGC as ESO 434-16. (As it is in Megastar and SIMBAD)
The misidentification or error is not the issue here.
As I was observing ESO 434-16, I noticed a couple of very faint stars superimposed that I couldn't see on the Realsky version of the DSS (due no doubt to the compression of the images). They are visible on the uncompressed DSS here:
approximately 29" distant in PA 12, and 19" distant in PA 170 from the core embedded in the halo. I've been trying to find the magnitude of these stars (which initially rang alarm-bells as supernova candidates) without success.
Is there a better researcher out there than I that can find a magnitude for either (or both) of them?
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