Albert Marth discovered NGC 2786 = m 153 on 5 Apr 1864 and noted "vF, vS, mbM". There is nothing near his position. Karl Reinmuth, in his 1926 photographic survey "Die Herschel Nebel" states "in Dreyer's place not found" but he proposes NGC 2786 = UGC 4861, which is located 18' north and 20 sec of RA west of Marth's position. There are no other nearby candidates, but with the large positional discrepancy, this identification is uncertain. Dorothy Carlson simply states "not found" based on Reinmuth's comment and RNGC classifies the number as nonexistent (Type 7). UGC 4861 is not identified as NGC 2786 in the major galaxy catalogues and is plotted as UGC 4861 on U2000.0 version 2.

400/500mm - 17.5" (1/12/02): fairly faint, fairly small, elongated nearly 2:1 WSW-ENE, 0.7'x0.4', very small brighter core. There are a group of mag 11/12 stars at the NW edge of the 220x field.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb