E.E. Barnard discovered IC 5086 = Sw. XI-204 on 15 Jul 1890 with the 12-inch refractor at Lick Observatory. He wrote in his logbook, "1' S and 22' p a 8m star. 1/2' dia, R, indef, 12 1/2 mag. Not in NGC." His rough pointing position is 5' S of IC 5086 and the comment about the 8th mag star applies.

Lewis Swift possibly found this galaxy again on 15 Sep 1897 and recorded "eeF, pS, R, F * near f 90 degrees." His position is poor - 20' southwest of ESO 464-025, though other positions are notoriously poor during his last year at Lowe Observatory at age 77. Swift is credited with the discovery as Barnard didn't publish his discovery or inform Dreyer.

400/500mm - 17.5" (8/6/97): fairly faint, fairly small, round, 1.0' diameter. Evenly concentrated down to a faint stellar nucleus but there is no well-defined core region. Forms the west vertex of an isosceles triangle with two similar mag 12 stars 5.8' E and 4.0' NE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb