Guillaume Bigourdan discovered IC 1277 = Big. 220 on 31 Aug 1888 and simply noted "faint stars" in his 1891 Comptes Rendus list. Harold Corwin states that Bigourdan has four observations of it; they do not agree very well, but his mean position is only 12 arcsec south of the nucleus. The identity is secure."

400/500mm - 17.5" (8/1/89): very faint, moderately large, very diffuse. A double star mag 14/15 is off the southwest side [1.6' from center]. Forms a pair with NGC 6575 9' NE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb