In 150 A.D. Greco-Roman writer and astronomer Ptolemy catalogued this object in his "Almagest". Using a telescope from the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, English astronomer Edmond Halley rediscovered this object in 1677, listing it as a non-stellar object. In 1715, it was published by Halley among his list of six "luminous spots or patches" in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society".