Jerome Coggia discovered NGC 6952 around 1877 at the Marseilles Observatory, probably using a 7.2-inch refractor. The discovery was apparently communicated directly to Dreyer and first appeared in the GC Supplement. There is nothing at his position, but 20' south is UGC 11604 = PGC 65086 and Coggia's description of a 15th mag star close following matches this galaxy. According to Steinicke, this was Coggia's only NGC discovery. Lewis Swift independently rediscovered this galaxy on 14 Sep 1885 and placed it accurately in list II-85 (later catalogued as NGC 6951). William Denning noted the equivalence NGC 6951 = NGC 6952 (The Observatory, 15, 106, 1892) and Dreyer repeated the identity in the IC 1 Notes section.

200/250mm - 8" (6/22/81): faint, small, bright core. A mag 13 star is at the east edge.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/30/99): observed SN 1999el, which was discovered 11 days ago (Oct 20). It appeared as a mag 14.5-15 star just following the core (22" E and 8" S) and easily visible at 280x. The galaxy is fairly faint and moderately large. Sharply concentrated with a small bright core surrounded by a diffuse halo elongated 3:2 E-W. A mag 12 star is 1.5' following the center and a mag 15 star is just visible a similar distance WNW.

17.5" (8/13/88): bright with a very bright core surrounded by a fainter large oval halo 3:2 E-W. A mag 13 star is just off the east edge 1.4' from center and a mag 15 star is off the NW end.

600/800mm - 24" (7/23/14): fairly bright, fairly large, slightly elongated, ~2' diameter. Sharply concentrated with a small, very bright core. A fairly broad "bar" extends east-west through the central region. Weak spiral structure is definite with careful viewing. An eastern arm appears as a subtle arc curving counterclockwise and passing west and then south of a mag 12.7 star 1.4' east of center. I expected the western arm to be more obvious, but it was only visible as a slightly brighter curving "edge" of the outer halo from west to north.

900/1200mm - 48" (10/23/14): NGC 6951 is a large spiral with a brighter central region extending ~1.8'x1.2' ~E-W and outer spiral arms (reaching north and south) that increase the dimensions to 2.8'x2.0'. Well concentrated with an intensely bright, circular core that is embedded with a bright, elongated oval "bar" extending E-W. A fairly narrow spiral arm is attached at the west end of the central region and curves strongly counterclockwise to the north, passing between two mag 15.8 stars [1.3' WNW and 0.8' NW of center]. This fairly low surface brightness arm is widely detached from the glow of the central region as it curls to the east, ending about 1.5' NNE of center. On the east side of the elongated core region a faint, shorter spiral arm curves south, passing near 3 or 4 faint stars oriented N-S and fades out ~1' SSW of center.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb