Joseph Turner discovered IC 4970 = DS 657 on 27 August 1881during an observation of NGC 6872 with the Great Melbourne Telescope. He wrote, "there is a small round nebula 1' north of 4549 NGC 6872] not mentioned by Herschel." The discovery was included in a final list of 6 new nebulae at the end of his notebook and mentioned in the "Seventeenth Annual Report of the Observatory", published in 1882. Pietro Baracchi later reobserved the pair and made a diagram of the field. Dreyer apparently wasn't aware of this announcement in the observatory report so IC 4970 wasn't assigned a NGC designation.

DeLisle Stewart rediscovered IC 4970 on a plate taken at Harvard's Arequipa station on 21 Sep 1900. He noted "bM, nr NGC 6872." Stewart is credited with the discovery in the IC.

400/500mm - 18" (7/10/02 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): this is an interacting companion of NGC 6872, situated just 1.1' N of center within the Pavo-I Group. At 171x, it appeared faint, very small, slightly elongated, 20"x15". A mag 10.4 star lies 1.8' SW. Images reveal a distorted bridge and plumes due to interaction with NGC 6872.

18" (7/8/02 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): this small companion to NGC 6872 appeared faint, small, slightly elongated, ~20"x15". Located 1' N of the core of NGC 6872.

600/800mm - 30" (10/12/15 - OzSky): IC 4970 is an interacting companion to NGC 6872, situated 1.1' N of center. At 303x it appeared fairly faint to moderately bright, fairly small, slightly elongated N-S, 0.4'x0.25', contains a very small bright nucleus.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb