George Johnstone Stoney, Lord Rosse's assistant, discovered NGC 1606 = GC 869, along with NGC 1601 and 1603, on 14 Jan 1849. A sketch of the field surrounding NGC 1600 was made in 1850. An accurate position was never measured but the sketch matches MCG -01-12-022 = PGC 15443.

400/500mm - 17.5" (12/26/00): extremely faint, very small, round, ~15" diameter. Required averted and much harder to view than IC 373 which was just observed. Located 7' NE of NGC 1600 and 4.5' W of mag 7.6 SAO 131278 within the large NGC 1600 group.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb