William Herschel discovered NGC 1199 = H II-503 = h282 on 30 Dec 1785 (sweep 499) and logged "pB, S, iF, mbM." Both William and John Herschel's declination was ~ 1' too far north. Engelhardt measured an accurate micrometric position.

300/350mm - 13.1" (1/18/85): moderately bright, small, round, diffuse halo surrounded by a fairly bright stellar nucleus.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/13/90): moderately bright, fairly small, oval 4:3 SSW-NNE, broadly concentrated halo, small bright core. A mag 11 star is 2.8' NE. An extremely faint mag 15 star or possibly an anonymous galaxy is 2' N.

NGC 1199 is the brightest in the HCG 22 quintet with extremely faint NGC 1190 4.1' SW, NGC 1191 4.6' SSW, NGC 1189 3.4' W and NGC 1192 4.0' S. NGC 1191 and 1192 lie in the background, though, at 3.5x the redshift. NGC 1199, along with NGC 1209, are the brightest members of a much larger group (LGG 81) that also includes NGCs 1145, 1163, 1188 and IC 276 at z ~.009.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb