William Herschel discovered NGC 3926 = H III-379 = h998 on 26 Apr 1785 (sweep 402) and noted "eF, lE, easily resolvable, may be a patch of stars, the night not being dark enough." JH made a single observation, logging "eF; R; S; near a star." Perhaps his comment about near a star refers to the western component!

400/500mm - 17.5" (5/4/02): this is a double system in a common envelope. The combined glow is elongated ~5:2 WNW-ESE, 0.8'x0.3'. In moments of better seeing, the system resolved into a contact pair with the brighter component (VV 218b) on the east end and the companion appearing as a very small knot (VV 218a) at the west edge! The separation is just 24" between centers. NGC 3925 is 8' S.

600/800mm - 24" (5/20/20): NGC 3926 is an overlapping pair with the nuclei separated by 24" and the halos overlapping. The eastern component is the larger and brighter and appeared fairly faint, fairly small, round, ~30" diameter, sharply concentrated with a quasi-stellar nucleus at most 10" diameter. The nucleus of the western galaxy was also easily visible at 225x and 375x and similar in brightness. But only a 10" core could be distinguished as the halos are merged. Overall, the dimensions were ~40"x20" in an E-W orientation.

CGCG 127-079, just 2.5' NE, appeared faint, slightly elongated N-S, low surface brightness, 24"x18".

Notes by Steve Gottlieb