William Herschel discovered NGC 5616 = H III-419 = h1805 on 1 May 1785 (sweep 405) and noted "vF, vS, E, er." JH made the single observation "vF; S; lE; vgbM: and his position matches UGC 9231.

400/500mm - 17.5" (7/10/99): faint, moderately large, edge-on 2.0'x0.4' oriented NNW-SSE, bright core. A mag 15 star lies 2.5' N of center. Located 6.7' N of mag 9.5 SAO 64124.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb