E.E. Barnard found IC 1884 on 26 Nov 1888 with the 12-inch refractor at Lick Observatory. He communicated the result directly to Dreyer who didn't notice the equivalence with IC 290, discovered by Swift (along with IC 293 and 294) on 11 Sep 1888. UGC labels the galaxy IC 1884 instead of IC 290. See Harold Corwin's notes.

400/500mm - 18" (11/22/03): very faint, very small, appears as a tiny elongated streak, ~25"x8". Located 5' N of IC 1883 (= NGC 1212) and 2.8' NNW of mag 8.7 SAO 38614 at the west side of AGC 426. Two mag 12/13 stars lie 50" E and 1.3' NE.

600/800mm - 24" (12/20/17): at 375x; faint to fairly faint, small, elongated ~5:2 NW-SE, ~25"x10", low nearly even surface brightness. Located 17' E of Algol and 2.8' NNW of mag 8.7 SAO 38614. IC 1883 = NGC 1212 is 4.9' S.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb