John Herschel discovered NGC 1809 = h2747 on 23 Dec 1834 and recorded (one one sweep only) "pF, S, R, gbM, 40", the second of two in field [with NGC 1801 = h2739]." His position is 4' south of ESO 056-048 = PGC 16599, a pretty low surface brightness galaxy that was not found by Robert Innes in 1926 at the Union Observatory in Johannesburg with the 26.5-inch refractor!

Eric Lindsay, in "Some NGC objects in the Large Magellanic Cloud" [1964IrAJ....6..286L], commented "At the same RA but 4' N an object which may be a galaxy, 210'' x 50''. In "Exploring the Southern Sky" (1987), the authors (Laustsen, Madsen and West) noted "It has been known for more than a century, and for a long time was believed to belong to the LMC. However, less than a decade ago, it became possible to measure the radial velocity...Somewhat unexpectedly, the velocity was found to be 1000 km/s, or several times larger than the velocities of stars and other LMC nebulae..."

400/500mm - 18" (7/10/05 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): this faint, reddened galaxy shines through the LMC in the same field 9' NE of the LMC cluster NGC 1801 and 16'-18' SW of a trio of clusters consisting of NGC 1828, NGC 1830 and NGC 1835! At 128x it appeared as a large, very faint, low surface brightness glow with very weak if any concentration and no visible core or nucleus. With careful viewing the galaxy is elongated 5:2 or 3:1 NW-SE, perhaps 1.6'x0.6'. Located 5' SE of mag 8 HD 33031.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb