History

This nebula was discovered as J 272 on 25 May 1892 by the French astronomer Stephane Javelle, using the 30 inch f/23 refractor «grande lunette» at the Nice Observatory. Javelle found 1669 nebulae, published in three volumes of the «Annales de l'Observatoire de Nice»; a fourth list was never published. ^[277] John L. E. Dreyer added the discovery to his first «Index Catalogue» in 1895 as IC 972 with the description: «Faint, very small, round, resolvable.» ^[314]

In 1955 George Ogden Abell identified IC 972 as a planetary nebula on the POSS photoplates and listed it as number 26 in his first publication and in his second publication of 1966 as number 37. ^{[331, 332]}