William Herschel discovered NGC 7184 = H II-1 = h2143 on 28 Oct 1783, the first night of his systematic sweeps! (internal discovery #1). He was using the "front-view" mode without a secondary (first 41 sweeps). He made another observation on 13 Oct 1786 (sweep 609, starting again using the front-view): "F, mE, er, making an angle with two pairs of stars, which are situated in a line from np to sf. The nebula is also followed by a small star, which continues the angle the nebula makes with the two pairs of stars." JH made the single observation on 23 Sep 1830, "pB; pL; vmE; position = 64.3°; psvlbM; 2' long." On 7 Sep 1850, George Stoney (LdR's assistant) reported seeing 4 knots or faint stars in the nebula.

Photographs taken with the 30-inch reflector at the Helwan observatory in Egypt in 1919-20 revealed "spiral with rather compact but well defined whorls [spiral arms] and a B sharp stellar nucleus surrounded by a rather brighter patch of nebulosity. Ther are signs of absorption in the northwest portion."

200/250mm - 8" (8/28/81): faint, fairly large, edge-on, narrow.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/12/85): bright, large, very elongated WSW-ENE with long faint extensions 5'-6' length, small bright core. A mag 12 star is off the NE edge. In a group with NGC 7180, NGC 7185 and NGC 7188.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb