George Johnstone Stoney, Lord Rosse's assistant, discovered NGC 5615 on 1 Mar 1851. He noted "[NGC 5614] is double, two others [NGC 5609 and 5613] faint." A diagram in the 1880 publication clearly shows a small knot at the north-northwest side of[NGC 5614. A later observation by R.J. Mitchell on 14 May 1857 called it a "faint star involved north. I suspect it to be a cluster."

400/500mm - 17.5" (7/18/01): at 380x, occasionally an extremely faint stellar object was barely glimpsed ~25" N of the core of NGC 5614 within the outer halo. Only detected ~15% of the time, but sighting confirmed.

17.5" (5/27/95 and 7/17/01): not seen.

600/800mm - 24" (7/8/13): at 322x appeared as a very faint, very small knot at the NW edge of NGC 5614.

900/1200mm - 48" (4/15/10): at 330x logged as a faint "star" at the northwest edge of the halo of NGC 5615, although at 430x it was noticed to be a nonstellar knot, ~4" diameter. Extending from this knot to the northwest of the halo of the galaxy is a very low surface brightness extension. This tidal plume was classified by Arp (178) as a "narrow counter-tail".

Notes by Steve Gottlieb