The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, abbreviated as NGC, is a series of 7,840 astronomical objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. The catalogue expands upon the work of William and Caroline Herschel as well as John Herschel's Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars. The catalogue includes galaxies, star clusters, emission nebulae, and absorption nebulae.
Dreyer updated the NGC in 1895 and 1908 to include an additional 5,386 astronomical objects. Many other revised editions of this catalogue have been created overtime. Mainly for ease of use and to counter the many errors that were in the original edition.
Index Catalogue[]
The first major update to the NGC is the Index Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (abbreviated as IC), published in two parts by Dreyer in 1895 (IC I, containing 1,520 objects) and 1908 (IC II, containing 3,866 objects). It serves as a supplement to the NGC, and contains an additional 5,386 objects, collectively known as the IC objects. It summarizes the discoveries of galaxies, clusters and nebulae between 1888 and 1907, most of them made possible by photography. A list of corrections to the IC was published in 1912.
List of NGC and IC objects[]
A list of the IC and NGC objects can be found in the categories section at the bottom of the page labelled: "NGC objects" and "IC objects" respectively.