John Herschel discovered NGC 6026 = h3617 on 8 Jun 1837 and recorded "F; S; R: 15"; gpmbM. There are 3 stars forming a triangle about 60°, np the nebula." His position is at the west edge of the planetary.

NGC 6026 was misclassified as an elliptical galaxy in the 1932 Shapley-Ames catalog, with dimensions 1.0'x0.8', mag(p) = 12.5. In the course of a photographic survey of bright southern galaxies at Mt Stromlo, de Vaucouleurs noticed the appearance suggested it might be a galactic PN. He notified Nicholas Mayall of Lick Observatory who obtained a spectrogram, which established it was a planetary nebula (announced in 1955PASP...67..418D). de Vaucouleus omitted it from the 1964 Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies as well as Alan Sandage in the 1981 revised S-A catalogue.

200/250mm - 8" not found.

300/350mm - 13" (7/5/83): very faint, small, round. A very faint mag 14 central star is visible. The planetary is visible with direct vision using a UHC filter. Located 7.3' NW of mag 7.6 SAO 207243.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/30/00): at 220x this fairly faint PN appeared slightly elongated SW-NE, ~50"x35". The 14th magnitude central star is easily visible encased by an evenly lit disc. The edges of the halo appear somewhat ragged but the PN is crisp-edged at 280x using a UHC filter.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb