^^ Thanks for the thorough explanation Les
I use Cartes Du Ciel V3 and I downloaded the latest PGC/LEDA catalogue - It seems all the magnitudes in that are B mags. When I look up the corresponding B mags in NED, there is often a discrepancy between it and CDC of up to a whole magnitude, for the same galaxy, but more commonly a few tenths. Would you say that NED is the better/more accurate or CDC? With NGC objects it doesnt matter as NGC-IC provides V mags for most of those.
I just checked out IC2531 on sky-map.org....niiiice! It's a fun-size version of NGC 891
It's on my menu as soon as Antlia makes a comeback. There's another nice needle ESO435-019 less than a degree to the south. IC5249 is nuts, DSS images show an *actual* needle with barely a hint of a bulge or anything. There's also IC5244 about a degree to its north, it's a textbook perfect spindle with sharp pointy ends on DSS images. Another nearby gem is IC5250A/b, two galaxy cores touching each other.