William Herschel discovered NGC 3516 = H II-336 = h816 on 3 Apr 1785 (sweep 390) and noted "pB, vS, iR." On 4 Nov 1831 (sweep382) John Herschel called this "a singular object. A burred star 11m diam 12"; vsmbM; a double stars follows."

NGC 3516 is a strong X-ray Seyfert galaxy and one of the 6 original galaxies studied by Seyfert in his seminal 1943 paper "Nuclear Emission in Spiral Nebulae".

400/500mm - 17.5" (3/28/92): moderately bright but small, slightly elongated SW-NE, sharp small bright core dominates, fairly small halo. A mag 14 star is 1.2' SE. Two mag 10 stars lie 2.3' NE and 4.1' W. This is a Seyfert galaxy with an large, active black hole.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb