John Herschel discovered NGC 1760 = h2709 on 20 Dec 1835 and described "a very faint, small nebula, with three very small stars involved. Place deduced not from a sweep but from a drawing carefully made of its configuration with the neighbouring nebula, especially of the cluster [NGC 1761]." Steinicke attributes James Dunlop with the discovery (D 231), but I don't believe this group of stars is obvious enough to have been picked up with his 9" speculum reflector.

NGC 1760 was recorded in "Observations of the Southern Nebulae made with the [48"] Great Melbourne Telescope". In November 1884, Baracchi wrote, "Very faint, small, roundish, three stars in it, 16th or 17th magnitude. Agrees exactly with H[erschel]. and T[urner]. No stars in the field. Three stars involved are not shown distinctly in the lithograph. They really appear as three distinct stars involved in very faint roundish nebula, whereas lithograph shows bright nebula with stars too diffused and uncertain." His sketch identifies GC 979 as the elongated strip just south of NGC 1771 with 3 embedded stars, though Joseph Turner sketched the entire complex between 17 Apr and 21 Apr in 1879. Turner's sketch shows the E-W string of stars but a round nebula to the SW, matching the position of LMC-N11I, is identified as NGC 1760.

300/350mm - 13.1" (2/17/04 - Costa Rica): very faint, small, elongated 1' strip of nebulosity just 3' S of NGC 1761. One or two involved stars were barely resolved.

600/800mm - 30" (11/4/10 - Coonabarabran, 264x): appears as a 1.7' E-W string of a half-dozen stars over fairly bright nebulosity. The emission haze is brightest just south of the string and extending to the west of the string a couple of arc minutes. Irregular nebulosity also branches out to the south of the string for another 2' and involves a mag 12 star. Another 2' string of N-S stars is on the west side of the haze.

NGC 1760 is at the SW end of a stunning complex (LHA 120-N11) of clusters and nebulosity including NGC 1763 = Bean Nebula, a showpiece nebula and cluster centered 7' NE; NGC 1761, a larger cluster and nebulosity just 3' N; NGC 1769, a bright emission nebula 8' NE; along with NGC 1773, NGC 1776 and IC 2115. Lucke and Hodge assign NGC 1760 and 1761 to the stellar association LH 9.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb