William Herschel discovered NGC 5324 = H II-307 = h1681 on 5 Mar 1785 (sweep 380) and logged "F, cL, bM, irr." John Herschel made the single observation "F; L; R; gbM; 50 or 60"." and his position is on the northwest edge of the galaxy. IC 4407, reported by William Henry Finlay at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope in December 1886, may be a duplicate observation. See Harold Corwin's notes.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/14/96): fairly faint, moderately large, round, 1.8' diameter, fairly low almost even surface brightness. A mag 14 star is off the SE edge 1.5' from center and a mag 15.5 star is superimposed on the east side. A pair of mag 12 stars at 36" separation are 4' WNW and a linear trio is ~8' SW. A line drawn east through both sets of stars intersects at NGC 5324!

Notes by Steve Gottlieb