William Herschel discovered NGC 5962 = H II-96 = h1928 on 21 Mar 1784 (sweep 183) and recorded "pB, pL, bM, resolvable, not R but inclining to a parallelogram."

400/500mm - 17.5" (7/16/93): fairly bright, fairly large, elongated 4:3 WNW-ESE, 2.0'x1.5'. Contains an elongated bright core, easy stellar nucleus with direct vision. The fainter outer halo surrounding the core is rounder. Located 16' WNW of mag 7.7 SAO 101654. This is the brightest galaxy near the head of Serpens Caput.

600/800mm - 24" (7/16/15): bright, large, oval 3:2 WNW-ESE, ~2.0'x1.5'. Sharply concentrated with a very bright small core that increases to a stellar nucleus.

VV 132 = UGC 9912 lies 20' WSW. This irregular blue spiral appeared fairly faint, moderately large, round, very low irregular surface brightness with no core. The surface brightness is not smooth and it appeared to have 1 or 2 slightly brighter patches.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb