Julius Schmidt discovered NGC 1369 on 19 Jan 1865 with the 6.2" refractor at the Athens Observatory during his survey on the Fornax Cluster (nebula "b" in his table). There is nothing at his position, which is 9.4' SE of NGC 1365. Interestingly, NGC 1365 is the previous entry in his table (AN 2097, p137) and that position is very accurate. The entry that follows NGC 1369 is a bright star (assigned mag 5.6), which supposedly follows NGC 1369 by 7 sec in RA and 2.4' S, though its position must also be in error. Harold Corwin found that if Schmidt made 3 minute error in RA for both objects (change 27 to 30), then NGC 1369 = ESO 358-034 = PGC 13330 and the bright star (4.5' SE) is mag 7.2 HD 22621.

This galaxy was listed in a table of new nebulae found between 1909-11 at the Helwan Observatory, but Knox-Shaw remarked that it was "possibly identical with [NGC] 1369." ESO-LV (surface photometry catalogue) and RC3 identify NGC 1369 = ESO 358-034 but the ESO-Uppsala catalogue and MCG don't label this galaxy as NGC 1369. The RNGC calls this number nonexistent.

400/500mm - 18" (12/30/08): faint, fairly small, irregularly round, ~0.9'x0.8', very weak concentration. Located 4.3' NW of mag 7.2 HD 22621 and 39' ESE of NGC 1365. This is a relatively bright member of the Fornax I cluster that was missed by John Herschel. Listed as nonexistent in the RNGC due to a poor position by Julius Schmidt.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb