Wilhelm Tempel discovered NGC 2940 = T 1-25 in 1877 with the 11" refractor at Arcetri and placed 5' N of NGC 2939 (the actual separation is 5.6'). He mentioned that d'Arrest missed this object.

400/500mm - 17.5" (2/20/88): faint, small, irregularly round, small bright core. Forms a pair with NGC 2939 5' S.

600/800mm - 24" (2/8/18): fairly faint, fairly small, slightly elongated E-W, 25"x20", low nearly even surface brightness with a very small brighter nucleus. First of three with NGC 2939 5.5' S and IC 548 11' SSE. A mag 10.5 star is 4.5' E and a mag 9.0 star (SAO 117823) is 7.5' E, with the two stars nearly collinear with this galaxy, along with a mag 9.7 star 6' NE. The three galaxies have disparate redshifts, so lie at different distances.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb