William Herschel discovered NGC 3523 = H II-904 on 2 Apr 1801 (sweep 1096) and noted "F, pL, lbM." This is one of 15 far northern galaxies with large systematic errors. A corrected position matching UGC 6105 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. MCG does not label this galaxy as NGC 3523. See NGC 2938 for more on this sweep.

400/500mm - 17.5" (4/25/98): extremely faint, fairly small, round, 45" diameter, low even surface brightness. Collinear with two mag 11 stars 5' ESE and 9' ESE. Brightest in trio with NGC 3465 14.5' WNW and NGC 3500 7' NW. Observation severely hampered by poor transparency.

600/800mm - 24" (5/25/14): at 280x appeared fairly faint or moderately bright, moderately large, irregularly round, 1' diameter, weak concentration to a slightly brighter core that seems offset center within the halo. Third in the KTG 34 triplet with NGC 3500 = UGC 6090 7' NW.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb