Burnhams Dark Comet is not B88!

In the course of working on a new article on dark nebulae for the 2004
edition of the Observer's Handbook, we came across what appears to be an
error in Burnham's Celestial Handbook. This error has led a generation of
deep-sky observers to incorrectly believe that a smaller object 7' S and 2'
W of the actual object catalogued by E.E. Barnard's as B88 is in fact B88.
While both nebulae are nice targets for amateur telescopes - indeed perhaps
Burnham's object is more "interesting" - we believe it is important that
Barnard's object be correctly known to the amateur community.

Here's our evidence that Burnham misidentified B88:

On pp. 1579 and 1581 of his Celestial Handbook, Burnham states that the
"dark comet-shaped" object at the left edge of the photo on p. 1581 is B88.
Barnard refers to Barnard's 1919 ApJ paper (vol. 49, pp. 1-23). In this
paper (which may be downloaded with a query at
http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/bib_abs.html), Barnard gives the position of B88
in 1875 coordinates as RA 17h 56m 56s and Dec -24° 07'. He states the
dimensions as 2.7' in N-S length and 0.7' in width. These coordinates
precess to 2000 coordinates 18h 04m 35s, -24° 07'. A 15'-diameter
POSS2/UKSTU image (obtained at http://archive.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form)
centred at these coordinates shows a dark nebula of the approximate stated
size at this position; the object Burnham claimed to be B88 is also seen,
but is smaller and at the bottom of the image, about 7' S and 2' W of
centre.

Barnard's two-part posthumous work Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky
Way provides further evidence that the object at 2000 coordinates 18h 04m
35s, -24° 07' is what Barnard designated as his object #88. This book was
published in 1927, four years after Barnard's death, and others were partly
responsible for some of the content. In the preface however, written in 1927
by Edwin Frost, it is clearly stated that Barnard wrote the descriptions for
the plates. The description for plate 30 in Part 1 says: "On the original
negative, the details in Messier 8 are very clear and beautiful. Two of the
remarkable, small, sharp, black spots are shown in the print, B 88 in the
north edge of the nebula and B 89 southeast of the center." The
(photographic) print in the book shows B88 in the location described; the
"dark comet" is also visible, barely, but its position could not be
described as "in the north edge." Furthermore, a chart in Part 2 that serves
as a finder for plate 30 marks B88. Apparently the charts in Part 2 were
prepared by Barnard's assistant, a Miss Calvert, under Barnard's personal
supervision. The plate-30 chart, when compared with plate 30 itself, makes
it clear that B88 is not Burnham's dark comet.

We cannot find any object in Lynds's 1962 Catalogue of Dark Nebulae, which
is the other major listing of dark nebulae, that matches the position of
Burnham's dark comet-shaped object. So, it seems that Burnham's object is
uncatalogued. We suggest that it become simply known as "Burnham's Dark
Comet" and shed the incorrect designation B88 that many observers have come
to know it by.

Paul Gray, author of the article Dark Nebulae in the 2004 RASC Observer's
Handbook
Rajiv Gupta, Editor, RASC Observer's Handbook