James Dunlop discovered NGC 2982 = D 468 = h3184 on 24 Jun 1826 and recorded "a very faint easily resolvable nebula, extended about 10' long, and 4' or 5' broad: no central condensation." His position is 8.5' west of the center of the cluster.

JH probably found the cluster on 28 Feb 1837 and logged "a cluster of about 20* 11m, and 2 of 10m, forming an oblong nearly in parallel; place of preceding *10m". But no bright star is near his position. He modified the declination 30' further north when he recorded this object as GC 1910 (repeated by Dreyer in NGC) but this position does not correspond with a cluster either. But an additional 10' north of the GC/NGC position is this group of brighter stars and his RA matches the southwest member of a wide pair of mag 10 stars at the southeast side of the group. JH did not list an equivalence with D 468, so he may have felt it was a different object due to the discrepancy in position.

Lynga does not list NGC 2982. MCG misidentifies MCG+05-28-059 as NGC 2982. RNGC classifies the number nonexistent (Type 7).

300/350mm - 14" (4/4/16 - Coonabarabran, 145x and 178x): bright, distinctive group of stars, roughly 10' x 6' E-W. About three dozen stars are resolved with many of the brighter mag 10.5-11.5 stars in a zig-zag pattern extending west to east. The brightest mag 10 star on the southeast end forms a wide 30" pair with an 11th mag companion. Another mag 12.5/13.5 pair at 15" is less than 2' NE. A 4' line of four mag 11-11.5 stars oriented NW-SE passes through the center and the remaining brighter stars are scattered within the outline.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb