Herschel discovered the object along with NGC 517 using Beta Andromedae as a reference star. He described his discovery as "two, both stellar", indicating his misidentification of the object as a star. The position noted for NGC 515 is just 35 seconds east of UGC 956, thus the two entries are generally thought to be the same object.[6] The object was also observed by John Herschel, son of William Herschel and later catalogued by John Louis Emil Dreyer in the New General Catalogue, where the galaxy was described as "pretty faint, very small, round, northwestern of 2" with the other one being NGC 517.[5]
^ abcAn object's distance from Earth can be determined using Hubble's law: v=Ho is Hubble's constant (70±5 (km/s)/Mpc). The relative uncertainty Δd/d divided by the distance is equal to the sum of the relative uncertainties of the velocity and v=Ho