William Herschel discovered NGC 7806 = H III-856 = h2295, along with NGC 7805, on 9 Oct 1790 (sweep 971) and recorded "Two, eF, stellar, between 1' of each other, from 30° sp to nf." John Herschel made 3 observations and noted (sweep 178) "eF; S; R; sbM."

400/500mm - 17.5" (11/14/87): fairly faint, very small, oval 4:3 ~N-S, bright core, stellar nucleus. Forms a close double system with NGC 7805 54" SW of center and about 30" off the edge.

600/800mm - 24" (12/1/16): at 375x; moderately bright, fairly small, compact, slightly elongated ~N-S, ~24"x18", small bright core, stellar nucleus. NGC 7806 is the northeastern of a double system with NGC 7805 50" SW. A mag 15.2 star is 50" SE.

MCG +05-01-026, a very low surface brightness arc-shaped edge-on 1' E, was not seen though the seeing was soft. I glimpsed it, though, with certainty on 12/28/16 in Bob Douglas' 28" at 427x. It was visible some of the time as an extremely faint and small glow, though a couple of times it elongated into a small streak.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb