Forms a double system with MCG +09-24-024 = PGC 52269 just beyond the NNE end, 1.5' from the center. The companion appeared extremely faint and small, round, just non-stellar. NGC 5707 has a redshift-based distance of ~100 million l.y., while MCG +09-24-024 resides at 600 million l.y., so they are not physically related.

Lewis Swift discovered NGC 5707 = Sw. I-36 in 1878 with his 4.5-inch comet seeker and found it again 7 years later on 22 Jun 1885 with his 16" Clark refractor. He recorded "B; pS; R; precedes DM +52°1816 31 sec [of time]. Found in presence of a half moon. First found 7 years ago with 4 1/2-inch Comet seeker and recorded as can find no record of it." His RA was 5 seconds too small. Herbert Howe commented that this "nebula" had two extremely faint and opposite extensions. Hermann Kobold measured an accurate micrometric position in 1893 (published in 1907).

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/18/93): moderately bright, edge-on 6:1 SW-NE, 2.0'x0.3', very bright compact round core, faint very thin extensions. A mag 14.5-15 star is off the SW tip 1.8' from center. Located 4.5' WSW of mag 7.4 SAO 29224.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb