Discovered by William Herschel in 1784.
NGC 2903 is another beautiful and more conspicuous Northern objects which Charles Messier missed when compiling his catalog - and that only narrowly: G.M. Caglieris has pointed out that three of his comets came quite close to this object: The second comet of 1760 passed it during the night of March 11-12, 1760 at only 1deg 40', and also the comets of 1762 and 1771 came into its vicinity. Thus its discovery was left to William Herschel who cataloged it as H I.56 on November 16, 1784.
NGC 2905 is a bright knot (star cloud) in NGC 2903, contrary to the NGC 2000.0 description. It was first assigned an extra number by William Herschel (H I.57).
NGC 2903 is listed by Brent Tully at a distance of 20.5 million light years. It is a beautiful spiral, seen from an oblique angle.
