William Herschel discovered NGC 955 = H II-278 = h229 on 6 Jan 1785 (sweep 351) and noted "pB, S, E." John Herschel also observed this galaxy on 2 sweeps and gave a similar description. Both of the Herschels' positions match UGC 1986, so there's no doubt about the identification.

In the NGC notes, Dreyer mentioned this object was a possible "variable nebula" because it was easily seen by Schönfeld in 1863, 1864 and 1868, Friedrich August Winnecke and Heinrich d'Arrest, but was not found by Vogel in 1865 nor Schönfeld in 1861. Sherburne Burnham (Publ of Lick Observatory, II) observed and measured the object without difficulty. Winnecke wrote a paper in 1878 that claimed NGC 955 showed a "periodic variability". It was also compared for variability on plates taken with the 60" at Mt Wilson in 1913 and 1917 and at the Helwan Observatory around 1920. Wolfgang Steinicke covers the story in his book on the NGC (p519).

200/250mm - 8" (11/28/81): very faint, small, elongated SW-NE.

400/500mm - 17.5" (12/4/93): moderately bright, edge-on 4:1 SSW-NNE, 1.5'x0.4', fairly bright elongated core. A mag 12 star is 2.5' SE. Located 25' W of 75 Ceti (V = 5.4).

Notes by Steve Gottlieb