John Herschel discovered NGC 2221 = h3044 (along with NGC 2222 = h3045) on 4 Dec 1834 and recorded "vF; lE; vgbM; the preceding of 2." His position is 1' too far north.

600/800mm - 24" (4/10/08 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): this is the brightest member of a trio of elongated galaxies (KTS 33). At 260x it appeared fairly bright, large, edge-on 4:1 N-S, ~1.5'x0.35', broad concentration, dims at the tips. Just at the north tip is an extremely faint star or a knot (appears to be an HII knot on the Vickers CCD image). Forms a striking pair with NGC 2222 2.7' N. The third member, ESO 161-001 is much fainter and lies 5.3' NNE. A 26" pair of mag 11.5/12 stars 4.5' NW is collinear with this galaxy and a mag 10.9 star lies to the NW of the trio.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb