Lawrence Parsons, the 4th Earl of Rosse, discovered NGC 2961 on 26 Dec 1873 during the observation of GC 1893 = NGC 2959. He noted it as "cF, S, lE 152.6°, gbM. Several stars near." His micrometric offset is 77.3" in PA 57.4° from NGC 2959. This is a good match with CGCG 332-063 although CGCG does not label this entry as NGC 2961.

Philip Keenan rediscovered this galaxy on a Yerkes Observatory plate by 1935 and called it NGC 2959A. It was included in a list of new nebulae in the 1935 paper "Studies of Extra-Galactic Nebulae, Part I: Determination of Magnitudes" (ApJ, 82, 62). All objects were assigned NGC + letter designations based on the nearest NGC object on the plate. He described it as "0.8'x0.25' in PA 144°; Sb."

400/500mm - 17.5" (4/4/92): extremely faint, very small, round, brighter core, averted only. Forms a close pair with NGC 2959 1.5' WSW.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb