John Herschel discovered NGC 6878 = h3821 on 27 Jul 1834 and recorded "vF; L; R; glbM; 90"." His position is on the west side of the galaxy.

600/800mm - 24" (9/15/12): at 175x appeared fairly faint, fairly small, round, 0.8' diameter. The view was severely hampered by low altitude (less than 10° elevation), poor seeing and sky glow low in the south. Located 5.5' NNE of mag 9.2 HD 191827. A wide 40" pair of mag 12.5-13 stars is on line with the brighter star ~2' SSW.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb