Lewis Swift discovered IC 1178 = Sw. VII-70, along with IC 1181, on 3 Jun 1888 and noted "eeeF; pS; bet 2 st. 10th of 12." His position is 2' west of Arp 172 and IC 1178 is generally assumed to be the northwest member of this close pair, with IC 1181 the southeast member. Although this galaxy lies between 2 stars, his comment can be made to apply to most galaxies. Corwin states that "Swift's position is not very good, and the fact that he does not mention either object in his description of the other, casts some doubt on the identification." Gerard de Vaucouleurs called this galaxy IC 1181A in the "Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies" (RC1). See Corwin's identification notes.

400/500mm - 17.5" (5/13/88): faint, small, round, bright core. Brighter of a close pair with IC 1181 20" SE. Located 12' S of IC 1182 in AGC 2151.

600/800mm - 24" (6/21/17): at 375x; fairly faint, fairly small, oval 5:4 or 4:3, ~40"x25". Sharply concentrated with a small high surface brightness core and a low surface brightness halo with averted vision. Forms an interacting pair (Arp 172) with IC 1181 [30" between centers] in AGC 2151.

PGC 57042 lies 5.6' SW. This dim edge-on (V = 15.9) appeared extremely faint, fairly small, elongated 2:1 NNW-SSE, 20"x10", very low surface brightness. A mag 12 star is 0.8' NW and a mag 13 star is 1' NE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb