John Herschel discovered NGC 6630 = h3745 on 8 Jun 1836 and recorded "pF; S; R; gbM; 15"." His position is a perfect match with ESO 103-026 = PGC 62008.

David Frew mentions in a Sky & Space article (Oct 1995) that Harlow Shapley misclassified NGC 6630 and IC 4723 as a pair of planetaries in his 1936 article "Five Planetary Nebulae and a Globular Cluster" (Harvard Bulletin No. 902). The same list includes Shapley 1, Shapley 3 and IC 4642. Evans & Thackery (1950) first imaged NGC 6630 (Plate II, No. 19) and they questioned the PN classification. "The classification is by appearance. We find an object with a quadrilateral of 4 stars or nuclei surrounded by a nebulous envelope. The object is difficult, and it seems open to doubt whether the object is correctly classified as a planetary nebula. Dimensions about 19"x15"." As a result of Shapley's error, Burnham's "Celestial Handbook", MOL (Master Optical List) and the NGC 2000.0 catalogue (Sinnott) misclassify this galaxy as a planetary nebula. It was omitted, though, in Perek and Kohoutek's 1967 Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebula. RNGC misclassifies NGC 6630 as nonexistent (Type 7).

600/800mm - 30" (11/3/10 - Coonabarabran, 264x): fairly faint, fairly small, irregularly round, 30"x25" diameter, weak concentration. Located 17' SE of mag 7.9 HD 169714. IC 4723 lies 23' ESE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb