Albert Marth discovered NGC 7439 = m 512 on 9 Sep 1863 and noted a "long patch of F nebulosity." His position is 30 seconds of RA east and 1' north of UGC 12273. Interestingly, I recorded this galaxy as round, so his description does not fit this galaxy very well. Bigourdan published a "corrected" position from 3 Aug 1891 in his Comptes Rendus list for 22 Jul 1901, but his position is 3.6' south and 20 seconds of time too large and probably refers to one or more stars.

Karl Reinmuth reported "not found" in his photographic survey at Heidelberg as well as Heber Curtis in Lick Observatory Bulletin #248 (1913) based on photographs with the Crossley reflector. Harold Corwin searched unsuccessfully for another candidate besides UGC 12273. See his notes.

400/500mm - 17.5" (7/17/93): very faint, very small, round, 0.4' diameter, very weakly concentrated core, very faint stellar nucleus at moments. A mag 12.5 star is 2.5' WSW. Located 4.3' NW of mag 9.3 SAO 90908.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb