William Herschel discovered NGC 2618 = H III-257 = h515 on 20 Dec 1784 (sweep 346) and noted "eF, pL, iF, requires long attention; the night remarkably fine." Caroline Herschel's reduced position is 16 seconds of RA too far west. John Herschel made a single observation on sweep 397 and wrote "Extremely doubtful, as I could not recover the object." His reported position (marked as very uncertain) is 7.5 seconds of RA too far east. Bigourdan measured an accurate position.

400/500mm - 17.5" (2/13/88): fairly faint, fairly small, irregularly round, weak concentration. Located along the south side of a trapezoid of mag 13-14 stars; closest is a mag 13 star 1' E.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb