William Herschel discovered NGC 5243 = H III-620 = h1648 on 17 Mar 1787 (sweep 714) and recorded "cF, E, about 3/4' long, r, not far from the parallel." JH measured a fairly accurate position and described the galaxy as "pF; E or obscurely bicentral; lbM, pos of elongation 25° nf by diagram."

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/8/02): fairly faint, thin nearly edge-on NW-SE, 1.1'x0.3' with a bulging core. A mag 12 star follows by 4.5'.

600/800mm - 24" (6/3/19): at 200x; type Ia SN 2019fck, discovered on May 13th, was easily visible as a mag 14.5-14.7 "star" off the NW end of the galaxy (23" W and 40" N of center).

24" (5/20/17): at 200x; moderately bright and large, very elongated 3:1 NE-SE, 1.2'x0.4', moderate surface brightness, weak concentration. At 375x; NGC 5243 exhibited an irregular surface brightness and seemed knotty or dappled with dust. The outer halo appeared to extend further towards the southeast with an occasional slightly brighter knot.

UGC 8564 lies 16.7' WNW. At 375x it appeared moderately bright, fairly small, elongated 5:2 SSW-NNE, 45"x18", small bright nucleus, moderately high surface brightness (central region of galaxy viewed).

Notes by Steve Gottlieb