William Herschel discovered NGC 3153 = H III-53 = h677 on 19 Mar 1784 (sweep 177) and noted "vF, not S, r[esolvable]." Caroline's reduction is 15 seconds of RA west of UGC 5505. John Herschel called it "eF; pL; R." on 23 Mar 1830 (sweep 242).

David Todd independently discovered this galaxy on 5 Feb 1878 during his search for a trans-Neptunian planet and recorded it as object #20b in his published results. It was found again by Christian Peters around 1880. He was unsure if this was a new object as Herschel's RA in the General Catalog was 12 seconds off. The NGC position -- from Peters -- matches UGC 5505.

400/500mm - 17.5" (1/23/88): moderately bright, moderately large, oval ~N-S, broad concentration.

600/800mm - 28" (4/12/18): at 285x; fairly bright, moderately large, elongated 5:2 or 3:1 ~N-S, ~1.5'x0.6', brighter along the major axis (central bar), slightly brighter nucleus.

CGCG 064-091, situated 5.4' E, appeared very faint and small, 18" diameter; a featureless glow with a very low surface brightness. Its redshift is 3.5x that of NGC 3153 so lies far in the background (~435 million l.y).

Notes by Steve Gottlieb