Royal Frost discovered IC 4686 = F. 1152 on a plate taken 1 Aug 1904 at Harvard's Arequipa Station. He noted "bM, magn 14".

600/800mm - 25" (10/15/17 - OzSky): at 397x; fairly faint, small, fairly high surface brightness, roundish, 20" diameter, very small bright core. Forms the southern member of a contact, interacting pair with NGC 4687 [27" bewtween centers] and the middle galaxy in an excellent triplet (KTS 57) with IC 4689 1.0' SSE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb