Hi All,
I very, very much like Glen C's suggestion. It removes any objection I could possibly think of save perhaps one. Halley was also the discoverer of M13 (that other "great" globular) -- he was certainly the first one to place it in a catalogue. When the people see the title, they might be inclined to confuse it with M13. The announcement of Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) is in the same catalogue.
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/messier/...halley_pt.html
As for the NGC/IC etc etc, I believe Dryer in compiling the NGC set out with the intention of consolidating all discoveries into one catalogue. He leaned heavily on Herschel's "general catalogue". I think Dryer tried to make one "be-all-and-end-all" master list that would include everything that guys like Messier, Lacaille, Dunlop, Herschel(s) etc etc.
He arranged the NGC basically in RA order starting at 0hrs as it was at his epoch (1900?? -- I'm not certain). Eg NGC 1 is in Pegasus. It is now at 0hrs 7mins due to precession.
Because it is arranged in RA it is impossible to add to without ruining the scheme. Just a few years later when the additions and errors had to be cleared up they then published those in a supplement -- The first IC (also arranged at least mostly in RA order) and then a second supplement as the pace of discovery increased.
The other catalogues came out mainly as a result of survey work becoming deeper and deeper and then finally being all done photographically. There are several more specialised catalogues that list things like "flat galaxies" and then "peculiar galaxies" (Arp) for those who just want to investigate special classes and sub-classes of things. Some very small "catalogues" arise because someone publishes a paper about say two new discoveries. Sometimes mistakes are made and a previously discovered object like the G.C NGC 6717 was included as Palomar 9 in the Palomar list of new G.Cs.
But I do agree with you it can be confusing. There is a convention (at least among professional astronomers) as to how they cite when a paper is published in the ApJs for example. I can't remember off the top of my head how it works but it basically amounts to "cite the most commonly used catalogue first".
It would be great if we had a naming scheme like the biologists use that grouped "like objects" together in a hierarchy, and where the name also conveyed something about the object. But I think it's too late now ...
Les D