William Herschel discovered NGC 157 = H II-3 on 13 Dec 1783 (sweep 44) and recorded "F, L, mE, between two considerably bright stars." His position was not accurately determined but his description is a perfect match with MCG -02-02-056 = PGC 2081. Eduard Schönfeld, Heinrich d'Arrest and Father Secchi provided accurate positions, so the NGC position is correct. Édouard Stephan (IX-1) independently found the galaxy with the 31" reflector at Marseille on 28 Oct 1878.

200/250mm - 8" fairly faint, fairly large, diffuse. Located between two mag 8.5/9.5 stars to the north and south.

400/500mm - 17.5" (9/17/88): bright, large, oval 3:2 SW-NE, broad concentration, small bright core, mottled appearance, sharp edge along the east side. Two mag 13.5 and 15 stars are near the NE edge. The galaxy is bracketed between 9.5-mag HD 3154 5.5' S and 8.6-mag HD 3144 6' NNW.

900/1200mm - 48" (10/29/19): at 610x; showpiece spiral with the sweep of two prominent spiral arms, outlined by dust lanes, forming a striking, stretched "S" pattern, similar to Superman's logo! Overall, elongated 3:2 SW-NE, ~3'x2'. At the center was a very small, intense nucleus. A beefy spiral arm was attached at the west side of the nucleus. It showed a high contrast, due to inner and outer dust lanes with a brighter, curving arc at its southwest end. This arm rotated clockwise towards the southeast side, and hooked towards the northeast. The second thick arm as attached on the east end of the nucleus. It also showed a high contrast arc along its northeast portion, then rotated sharply clockwise towards the west and angled southwest to the west of the central region. Two mag 13.6/15.3 stars (0.6' apart) lie 1.3' NE of center. A dusty triangular wedge (between spiral arms) extended from these stars towards the core.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb