William Herschel discovered NGC 3061 = H II-903 on 2 Apr 1801 (sweep 1096) and logged "F, pL, r." This is one of 15 far northern galaxies with large systematic errors. A corrected position matching UGC 5319 was published in 1911 using plates taken at the Greenwich Observatory with the 30-inch reflector. Dreyer repeated this position in the notes to his 1912 edition of WH's catalogues. See NGC 2938 for more on sweep 1096 or Harold Corwin's full story in his notes for NGC 3752..

John Herschel observed what he assumed was his father's II-903, and recorded h653 as "very doubtful. Moonlight and haze." There is nothing at or near his poisition (noted in the MN paper). JH used his position, though, and basically his father's description (changing "F" to "vF") in the GC and Dreyer repeated this in the NGC. So, NGC 3061 = H II-903 and not h653.

400/500mm - 17.5" (1/28/89): faint, fairly large, slightly elongated, low surface brightness. There are two faint stars at the edges; a mag 14.5 star 1.8' NW of center and a faint 15 star 0.9' SSE of center.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb