Lewis Swift discovered NGC 6796 = Sw. II-79 on 5 Jul 1885 and recorded "vF; pS; vE in meridian [N-S]." His RA is 13 seconds too small but the description matches. Bigourdan measured an accurate position on 8 Sep 1888. Herbert Howe, in his series of observations of NGC and IC nebulae in MNRAS, commented "this is very much elongated at 0°, and certainly contains one bright spot of mag 13.5; perhaps there are others. There is a resemblance to the great nebula in Andromeda."

CGCG misidentifies this galaxy as NGC 6797. Malcolm Thomson noted this error in his list of CGCG errors.

400/500mm - 17.5" (8/13/88): moderately bright, moderately large, pretty edge-on 4:1 N-S, 1.4'x0.3', bright core.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb