William Herschel discovered NGC 6742 = H III-742 on 8 Jul 1788 (only object in sweep 849) and noted "vF, stellar, 300 verified it." He included this planetary in class III of "Very Faint Nebulae". d'Arrest's single position is accurate to within 1'.

400/500mm - 17.5" (7/22/01): moderately bright, fairly small, perfectly circular. Easily picked by scanning region at 100x just 3.5' NE of mag 8.9 SAO 47978. Appears unevenly lit at 280x, ~30" diameter with slightly enhanced regions along the rim. A very faint star is off the NE edge.

17.5" (5/10/86): at 220x without filter appears fairly faint, round, fairly small. At 105x using an OIII filter the planetary is bright and compact with crisp round edges.

600/800mm - 24" (10/4/13): picked up unfiltered at 200x but an excellent contrast gain adding an OIII filter. Appeared fairly bright, round, 30"-35" diameter, slightly unevenly lit. At 280x and 375x unfiltered, an extremely faint star (mag 16?) is barely inside the west edge and a mag 15 star is just off the NNE edge. Adding an NPB filter the rim appear to be slightly brighter, particularly along the north side.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb