William Herschel discovered UGC 8902 on 19 Mar 1787 and recorded "Suspected, vF, vS. With 300 probably 2 or 3 small stars; just north of a bright star." His position is 3.8' too far south but his comment "just north of a bright star" pins down the identification. Because of his uncertainty in the observation, he didn't assign an internal number or a catalogue designation. Interestingly, this object is the third in a row on the sweep (the other two are IC 944 and IC 946) that were described as "suspected" and hence were rejected, although all three are valid!

600/800mm - 24" (6/12/18): at 282x; fairly faint, fairly small, very elongated 3:1 or 4:1 NNW-SSE, ~1.0'x0.3', very small brighter core and stellar nucleus, overall fairly low surface brightness. Located 1.2' NNE of mag 8.1 HD 122038. CGCG 103-034 lies 4.6' NNW.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb