William Denning discovered IC 442 on 9 Nov 1890 while comet seeiking in Camelopardus with his 10-inch reflector. He noted "F, S, R, mbM"

600/800mm - 24" (2/7/16): IC 442 was picked up at 226x (10mm ZAO) as a fairly faint, fairly small round glow, ~18" diameter. Adding a 2x Powermate (452x), two extremely close nuclei [separated by 8"] were resolved within the halo! The nucleus in the south-southwest part of the halo (PGC 2787456) was almost seen continuously in periods of fairly steady seeing, while the north-northeast nucleus (PGC 19306) was a bit more subtle. Both were stellar or quasi-stellar and towards the outer edges of the halo.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb