Renaming - CTB1 FKA Abell 85! Other · Mike Dobres · ... · 3 · 225 · 0

I recently imaged CTB1 in Cassiopeia- which in this forum is also commonly identifed as Abell 85. It appears that this is no longer the case - and has not been so for the last half century.

CTB1 was originally known as Abell 85, but after a renumbering of the Abell catalog about 50 years ago, it was subsequently used to refer to a galaxy in Cetus.  See this link for more explantion.  CTB1 mislabeled Abell 85 | Telescope Live.  So perhaps folks should use the expression fka instead of aka. 

This renaming caused me a lot of confusion as I was researching the target online, until I found the Telescope Live explanation by Tom Harnish. Especially since a 2019 discovery of  an extremely large black hole on Abell 85 refers to the Abell 85 galaxy in Cetus A 40 Billion Solar-mass Black Hole in the Extreme Core of Holm 15A, the Central Galaxy of Abell 85 - IOPscience.

Fortunately, I used the correct CTB1 coordinates for my imaging .   Stellarium and other databases show the  correct naming and location of Abell 85 in Cetus, and CTB1 in Cassiopeia.


Are there other examples of catalog renaming that we need to be aware of? I´ve only been into AP for a few years, and this is the fist time I´ve encountered something like this.

There are 2 different Abell catalogues:
The Abell Catalogue of Planetary Nebula
The Abell Catalogue of Rich Clusters of Galaxies

CTB1 was initially part of the first catalogue as it was first considered to be a planetary nebula. Nowadays however it is known that it is not … so it is not listed in this catalogue anymore.

Confusion preprogrammed when talking just about THE Abell catalogue …