William Parsons (Lord Rosse) and assistant R.J. Mitchell discovered NGC 1130 and 1131 on the 8 Dec 1855 observation of the NGC 1129 field. Their description reads, "there is a knot north about 2' distance [from NGC 1129]. CGCG 540-004 = CGCG 539-122 lies 1.7' NNW of NGC 1129, so it's the logical candidate. Corwin suggests PGC 197768, situated 1.9' N of NGC 1130, as another possible candidate, but this galaxy is fainter and was not picked up in my observation. The MCG appears to have a mixup in its identifications.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/24/87): very faint, very small, round. A mag 14 star is just south. Located 1.7' NNW of NGC 1129.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb