Heinrich d'Arrest discovered NGC 1272 on 14 Feb 1863 with the 11" refractor at Copenhagen Observatory. He estimated a size of 45"-50" diameter and measured the position on 2 nights (27 seconds preceding NGC 1275). The same night he found NGC 1267, 1268, 1270, 1273 and 1278.

200/250mm - 8" (1/1/84): extremely faint and small, round.

300/350mm - 13.1" (1/28/84): fairly faint, fairly small, bright core.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/24/87): fairly faint, small, round, small bright core. This galaxy is the second brightest in AGC 426 and forms the SW vertex of a distinctive parallelogram of brighter galaxies with NGC 1275 5' ENE, NGC 1273 3.1' NNE and NGC 1278/1277 7.5' NE. Also located midway between NGC 1275 and NGC 1270 4.4' WSW.

600/800mm - 24" (2/13/18): at 375x; bright, fairly large (largest in AGC 426!), round, ~2' diameter. Strongly concentrated with a large bright core that gradually increases to the center but no central pip. The surface brightness of the core is lower than NGC 1275, which is 5' ENE.

PGC 12387, located 3.7' S, appeared faint, small, elongated 3:1 ~N-S, 0.3'x0.1'.

PGC 12409, located 3.0' E, appeared very faint, very small, round, 10" diameter. Collinear with two stars 0.9' NNW (mag 11.6) and 1.5' NNW (mag 14.5).

Notes by Steve Gottlieb