Edward Swift discovered IC 187 = Sw. IX-7, along with IC 188, on 18 Jan 1890 while searching for "Swift's Comet". The RA is 21 sec of time too large, but matches in declination.

400/500mm - 18" (12/22/11): fairly faint, fairly small, elongated 2:1 WSW-ENE, 0.6'x0.3'. Broad concentration with a brighter and rounder 15" core. Forms a double system with PGC 2800932 = MAC 0201+2629. The fainter companion was at or just off the east end and appeared as very faint, small, roundish glow that was sometimes detached, depending on if the halo (arms) of IC 187 was visible or not.

600/800mm - 24" (12/22/14): moderately bright, fairly small, elongated 5:2 WSW-ENE, 0.6'x0.25'. Contains a small, brighter rounder core with fairly low surface brightness extensions that increased in size with averted. Brighter member of an double system with PGC 2800932 at the east-northeast edge. The companion was faint, small and barely detached. An evenly matched 10" pair of mag 12.5-13 stars lies 6' SSW. NED does not include redshift data on the companion, so this may be either be a merging or overlapping pair.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb