Wilhelm Tempel discovered NGC 338 = T I-6 in 1877 with an 11" refractor at the Arcetri Observatory and recorded "small but class III; has 2 stars mag 14-15 near the south end." His position is 11 tsec W and 1' S of UGC 624 and the description of the nearby stars fits. Édouard Stephan (XII-8) independently found the galaxy on 6 Nov 1882 with the 31" reflector at Marseille Observatory and the position was accurately measured.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/5/02): nice, fairly small edge-on oriented WNW-ESE, 0.8'x0.25', very small bright core. A pair of evenly matched mag 14 stars are close off the south side.

17.5" (11/25/87): moderately bright, very elongated WNW-ESE, moderately large, bright core. An easy mag 14 double star at 22" separation is off the SSE edge just 0.8' from center.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb