DeLisle Stewart discovered IC 4723 = D.S. 476 on a plate taken on 20 Jul 1901 at Harvard's Arequipa Station. He noted "vF, vS, R."

Burnham's "Celestial Handbook", MOL (Master Optical List) and the NGC 2000.0 catalogue (Sinnott) misclassify this galaxy as a planetary nebula. This error stems from Harlow Shapley's 1936 paper "Five Planetary Nebulae and a Globular Cluster" in Harvard Bulletin #902, 193. The first and most famous in this paper being the "Fine Ring Nebula" Shapley 1 in Norma and this object is Shapley 5. Evans and Thackeray (1950) state "We find (Plate II, Fig. 20) a curious round object of diameter about 19" with three distinct nuclei running along a north-south line across it. The designation as a planetary again seems doubtful." Perek and Kohoutek rejected the PN classification in the 1967 Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae with the comments "Not a planetary", Henize, private communication; "doubtful planetary", Evans, Thackeray, 1950.

600/800mm - 30" (11/3/10 - Coonabarabran, 264x): fairly faint, fairly small, round, 30" diameter, weak concentration. This outlying member of ACO S805 = Pavo II cluster is located 23' ESE of NGC 6630. These two galaxies have similar appearances in terms of magnitude and size. IC 4730 lies 20' E.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb