IC 1101 is a giant elliptical galaxy, and one of the largest of thousands of galaxies in galaxy cluster Abell 2029. Based on its recessional velocity of 23370 km/sec, a straightforward calculation yields a distance of about a billion light years. Because of the expansion of the Universe, the galaxy was actually a little closer than that, when the light by which we see it left the cluster (more details to be posted later). Given its distance and an apparent size of 1.2 by 0.6 arcmins, it is about 350 thousand light years across; but its outer halo, which is about 2 arcmin across, stretches across half a million light years.

Per Dreyer, IC 1115 is "most extremely faint, small, round, pretty bright star to southeast". Per Corwin, Howe identified the object (in a paper published in 1898) with the pair of stars whose position is listed above, based on the 11th-magnitude star about 5 arcmin to the southeast. (The 17th-magnitude galaxy near the pair of stars is too faint for either Swift or Howe to have seen.)

An odd duplication, caused by Dreyer not noticing Safford's observations until after finishing the NGC. As a result, the original entry for NGC 6020 lists another observer, and different data; but there is no doubt that Safford's observation was of the same object at an earlier date, hence his being credited with a double discovery on the basis of a single observation.