NGC 2984 forms a pair with IC 557 7' SE. The companion appeared faint, very small, elongated 2:1 SW-NE, 30"x15", weak concentration, very faint stellar nucleus at moments. The elongation was not always evident, so often I was just viewing the slightly brighter core.

Stephane Javelle found IC 556 = J. 1-168 on 22 Apr 1892 and reported "F, vS, R, nucleus = 14th mag". His position matches UGC 5200.

This galaxy was probably discovered by William Herschel on 15 Mar 1784 and catalogued as H III-34 (later h633 and NGC 2984), but his position was unusually poor -- 1 min 19 sec of RA west and 3.5' south of IC 556. Karl Reinmuth mentioned he couldn't find NGC 2984 in Dreyer's place using Heidelberg plates and questioned if it was equal to IC 556. This is likely the case as there are no other reasonable candidates for NGC 2984 in the vicinity. UGC, CGCG and MCG label this galaxy as IC 556 and RNGC calls it NGC 2984. See Corwin's identification notes.

400/500mm - 17.5" (4/1/00): faint, small, round, 25" diameter, weak concentration. The halo, which fades at the edges, increases to ~0.6' with averted vision. A mag 14.5 star is close SSW (33" from center) and a slightly brighter star lies 0.9' NE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb