William Herschel discovered NGC 2613 = H II-266 = h3129 on 20 Nov 1784 (sweep 326) and logged "F, E, bM, r, pS that is about 1.5' diameter." On 20 Nov 1784 (sweep 663) he noted "cB, cL, irr F, E nearly in the parallel." John Herschel made 3 observations from the Cape of Good Hope, describing it on one sweep as "B, L, vmE in position 110.3°, pslbM, 3' long, 20" broad." Joseph Turner made a sketch on 18 Jan 1877 with the Great Melbourne Telescope. The galaxy is shown as a thin edge-on with a small bright nucleus.

300/350mm - 13.1" (3/24/84): fairly bright, fairly large, very pretty edge-on 4:1 WNW-ESE, 4.0'x1.0', broadly concentrated. Several stars are nearby as the galaxy is located in a rich star field including a mag 12 star 1.5' N, a mag 13 star 2.0' S of center and another mag 12 star at the west edge of the halo. NGC 2613 is the brightest galaxy in Pyxis.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb