William Herschel discovered NGC 3319 = H III-700 on 3 Feb 1788 (sweep 804) and recorded "cF, L, irr E, about 4' long and 2 1/2' br, much brighter south of the middle." CH's reduction is just off the southeast side of UGC 5789.

400/500mm - 17.5" (2/8/91): fairly faint, very elongated 5:2 SW-NE. The brightest portion is a large bar with a knotty extension attached at the SW end and extending on a right angle to the south. At this position on the POSS are several bright knots.

900/1200mm - 48" (5/1/19): at 488x; very large barred spiral, extending 2:1 SW-NE and ~5.5' along the major axis! The galaxy is sharply concentrated with a very bright, very elongated high contrast bar, extending 1' SSW-NNE! A fairly easy section of a spiral arm parallels the bar on the south side of the galaxy. A couple of easy knots, ~6" and 10" in size, along with a faint star, are at the SW end of this arm [1.9' SSW of center]. The arm vaguely bends at a right angle to the NW and contains a bright, 12" knot [V = 16.6] . A low contrast arm is west of the bar, also running parallel (SSW-NNE). Another low surface brightness arm is NE of the bar. It curls sharply counterclockwise to the east and occasionally contained an extremely faint HII knot. An ill-defined, diffuse glow (part of this arm) extends further northeast to the outer edge of the halo. SQM 21.85.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb