This nearby dwarf irregular starburst galaxy lies 15.6 million light years distant in the M83/Centaurus A group. It was misclassified as a planetary nebula in the first edition of the Sky Catalogue 2000 and NGC 2000. Henize 3-959 = StWr 4-9 likely refers to the small clump of HII regions on the southwest side of the galaxy.

John Herschel discovered NGC 5408 = h3553 on 5 Jun 1834 and recorded "eF; E between 2 vS stars, a little sf." His position (single observation) is 2' south of the emission-line galaxy ESO 325-047. This galaxy was misclassified as a planetary in the Sky Catalogue 2000 and the NGC 2000 because it was found by Stock and Wroblewski in 1972 (SKWL 4-9) and listed as a PN in a PK update list (PK 317+19.1) with the comment "extragalactic HII region?". In 1972, Allen reported this object as a peculiar galaxy with a redshift of 500km/s. MCG does not label -07-29-006 as NGC 5408.

400/500mm - 22" (6/28/06 - Hawaii): at 200x; NGC 5408 appeared fairly faint, small, elongated ~2:1 SW-NE, 0.8'x0.4'. A faint star is at the southwest end. Located just 3' NNW of mag 6.1 HD 122532 and the galaxy is bracketed by a mag 10 star 1.5' SW and a mag 11 star 2' E. The "faint star" noted on the southwest end may be an ultra-luminous star formation region (see below).

Notes by Steve Gottlieb