Frank Muller discovered NGC 2868 = LM 2-411 = Big. 39 in 1886 with the 26" refractor at the Leander McCormick Observatory. He recorded "mag 15.3, 0.4' dia, R, 10s preceding [NGC 2869 = NGC 2863]." According to Harold Corwin, Guillaume Bigourdan independently discovered NGC 2868 on 15 Jan 1887, but was not credited in the NGC. Herbert Howe measured an accurate RA with the 20" refractor at the Chamberlin Observatory in 1899-00 and the correction was repeated by Dreyer in the IC 2. RNGC misclassified this number as nonexistent (Type 7).

400/500mm - 17.5" (2/1/03): extremely faint, very small, elongated 3:2 WSW-ENE, 0.4'x0.25, low even surface brightness. Located just 2.3' W of much brighter NGC 2863!

Notes by Steve Gottlieb