William Denning discovered IC 381 on 26 Aug 1889 while comet-seeking at 32x with his 10-inch reflector in England. At first he thought it might be identical to NGC 1530, but suspected it was new due to the discrepancy in position. The following year he accidentally ran across NGC 1530 and was certain his find was new. He commented "with a power of 145 it is pretty faint, rather small, and there is a star of the 12th mag. on its N.W. border. Two or three other extremely minute stars closely outlie the object, but they are near the limits of my aperture." IC 381 was called NGC 1530A" by Philip Keenan's in a table of new nebulae found on Yerkes plates and published in 1935 and deVaucouleurs used this designation in his 1964 Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies.

400/500mm - 17.5" (3/1/03): picked up at 100x as a moderately large, low surface brightness galaxy. Brightens somewhat towards the center. A mag 13 star is superimposed near the edge of the halo. At 220x, the star is at the north edge and the galaxy is elongated 4:3 NW-SE, 0.8'x0.6', although the edge of the halo is difficult to define.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb