Edward Swift, the 16 year-old son of Lewis, discovered NGC 6686 = Sw. IX-92 (along with NGC 6685) on 29 May 1887. The discovery was communicated directly to Dreyer and wasn't published until 1890, after the NGC. The declination for both galaxies is 3' too far north and several seconds of RA too far west. Bigourdan measured an accurate position (matching CGCG 228-022) on 2 Aug 1888 (repeated in the IC2 Notes). See identification notes for NGC 6685.

400/500mm - 17.5" (7/5/86): faint, small, round, bright core. Located 4.8' ENE of mag 8 SAO 47678. Slightly smaller and fainter than NGC 6685 9.5' SSW. IC 4772 is 7.9' SSW.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb