William Henry Finlay

Finlay discovered 4 IC objects with the 6" and 7" Merz refractors (installed 1884 and 1879) of the Cape Observatory in 1883-87; see: Nebulae observed at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, MNRAS 58, 329 (1898), containing also objects found by Innes. Due to the late publication Dreyer could only include them in the Second Index Catalogue (1908). The first two objects, IC 2949 in Centaurus (found July 27, 1884) and IC 4407 in Virgo (found Sept. 20, 1883) are lost ("not found"), maybe due to an incorect "circle reading" of the coodinates. The others are galaxies in Grus: IC 5267 and IC 5240, found on Dec. 25 and 26, 1886. The latter was also discovered later by Swift (Aug. 8, 1898). IC 4606 in Scorpius was found Sept. 8, 1887 but is most likely identical to W. Herschel's NGC 6144, a globular cluster.

Obituary: MNRAS 85, 309 (1925)

Cape Observatory with 6" and 7"Merz-Refractors