William Herschel discovered NGC 3752 = H II-905 on 2 Apr 1801 (sweep 1096) and noted "pB, pL." This is one of 15 far northern galaxies with large systematic errors. John Herschel has a listing (h917) for what he assumed was H. II-905 in the Slough Catalogue, but his position falls on a 14th magnitude star, which he simply called "eF". Dreyer used JH's erroneous position for NGC 3752 in the NGC (personal email from Wolfgang Steinicke on 25 Dec 2013).

A corrected position using plates taken at Greenwich with the 30-inch reflector (MN, 71, 509, 1911) matches UGC 6515 and Dreyer repeated this position in the notes to his 1912 edition of WH's catalogues. See NGC 2938 for more on sweep 1096 or Harold Corwin's full story in his notes for NGC 3752.

400/500mm - 17.5" (4/18/98): fairly faint, moderately large. At first this galaxy appeared roundish (probably viewing the core only), but then fainter extensions were seen NW-SE, increasing the dimensions to 1.2'x0.6'. Forms a triangle with two mag 11/13 stars 2.4' ENE and 1.4' NNE, respectively, and several other stars trail off towards the SW.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb