John Herschel discovered NGC 1868 = h2796 on 30 Nov 1834 and reported "pF; pL; R; vglbM; 80"." On a second sweep he recorded "pB; R; gbM; 30"." In 1926, Robert Innes described it visually as a "Resolvable. 1' diameter, bM, = 9th mag." (26-inch refractor, Union Observatory).

600/800mm - 30" (10/15/15 - OzSky): at 394x; bright, moderately large, round, fairly thin halo, 1.0' diameter, mottled and high surface brightness but not resolved. A mag 12 star lies 2.5' NE. Resides in an fairly sparse field 57' SE of mag 5.2 WZ Doradus.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb