E.E. Barnard and Sherburne Burnham discovered IC 938 along with IC 937 in a group around June 1892 with the 36" Lick refractor. Corwin and Steinicke identify IC 938 with LEDA 3483228, which is situated just 30" NW of Barnard's position. Edwin Hubble, in the 1920 published version of his 1917 PhD thesis ("Photographic investigations of faint nebulae"), also stated this galaxy (#62 in his table) is "very probably" IC 938. See IC 917 for more.

900/1200mm - 48" (5 /9/18): fairly faint, fairly small, very elongated 3:1 NNW-SSE, 0.3'x0.1', small bright core. Forms a close pair with IC 937 just 0.4' NW in the core of AGC 1783.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb