Ralph Copeland discovered NGC 3758 south of "Copeland's Septet on 18 Mar 1874 and logged "pB; S; R; smbM; Nucl not stellar." His offsets to nearby stars is a perfect match with CGCG 126-110 = PGC 35905, although it was placed too close to Copeland's Septet on the constructed sketch of 13 Apr 1876 showing all discovered nebulae. This galaxy was independently found by Stephan exactly 10 years later on 18 Mar 1884 and accurately placed in his list XIII-61.

Bill Keel dubbed this the "Owl" galaxy (because of twin nuclei) in a 1993 article in Mercury magazine article "The real astrophysical zoo - Colliding galaxies", though there are no Google hits on that nickname.

400/500mm - 17.5" (5/4/02): fairly faint, small, slightly elongated, 0.5' diameter. Following by 2.5' is mag 9.7 SAO 81899 which is the first of three on a line to the NE. Also in the field is a 43" pair of mag 9.5 stars ~8' SSE. Copeland discovered NGC 3758 and this galaxy is situated 30' SW of Copeland's Septet.

900/1200mm - 48" (4/20/17): at 697x; moderately bright, fairly small, round, 30" diameter. Two stellar nuclei were resolved, separated by only 6" E-W. The eastern nucleus seemed slighter brighter or perhaps more stellar. The western nucleus was quasi-stellar (perhaps a few arseconds diameter).

NGC 3758 is a post-merger pair and the twin nuclei (separated by ~11,000 light-years) both house super-massive black holes! The seeing was fairly poor at the time of the observation but the twin nuclei were still easily resolved. Located 2.6' ESE of a bright mag 9.7 star (SAO 81899).

Notes by Steve Gottlieb