William Herschel discovered NGC 6070 = H III-553 = h1947 on 3 May 1786 (sweep 562) and recorded "cF, iF, 4 or 5' long, 2 or 3' br." His position and description matches UGC 10230. JH called this galaxy "F; L; pmE; vgbM; 2 1/2' long."

300/350mm - 13.1" (6/4/83): fairly large, diffuse, elongated ~E-W, almost even surface brightness. A mag 7 star is 7' N.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/11/88): fairly bright, large, oval 2:1 SW-NE, broad moderate concentration. Brightest of trio with NGC 6070B 4.3' NE and 6070C 5.6' NE. Located 7.9' SW of mag 7 SAO 121396.

600/800mm - 24" (6/28/14): fairly bright, large, elongated 2:1 SW-NE, 2'x1', contains a large brighter core, fades out around the periphery. A very faint "star" seen near the northeast tip is actually a compact HII region labeled as region IV in the 2010 paper. Located 8' SE of mag 6.7 HD 145204.

NGC 6070 is the brightest in a trio with NGC 6070B = CGCG 023-018 (double) 4.2' NE and NGC 60670C = PGC 1175364 5.6' NE. NGC 6070B appeared very faint, small, elongated 2:1 ~N-S, low surface brightness. This is a close double system and the noted elongation implies both systems were visible, but not individually resolved. NGC 6070C was extremely faint, very small, round, 12" diameter. The fainter companions are much more distant at ~590 million l.y., compared to NGC 6070 (~100 million l.y.).

900/1200mm - 48" (5/9/18): at 375x; even in poor seeing NGC 6070 revealed three spiral arms or arcs of arms as well as a couple of HII knots. The galaxy appeared bright, large, elongated nearly 2:1 ~SW-NE, ~3'x1.5'. An inner spiral arm was visible on the NE side of the bright core. It showed a "hard" outer edge that defined the arm and contrasted with an obvious darker gap (dust) that was between this arm and an outer spiral arm. The outer arm seemed to emerge just north of the inner arm and gently curved counterclockwise towards the east and bending south near its tip. This outer arm ended at a very faint, small HII knot labeled as region I in the 2010 paper "Giant HII regions in NGC 7479 and NGC 6070". Just outside the northeast curve of this arm was a second, slightly brighter HII knot, 6"-10" diameter (identified as region IV). Another inner spiral arc was symmetrically placed to the SW side of the core. It was pretty ill-defined, though, and lacked a sharp edge.

NGC 6070B is a close double system 4.3' NE of NGC 6070. The cores were easily resolved at 16" separation N-S. The southern component (NGC 6070B NED2) was larger and appeared fairly faint, round, 0.4' diameter, small bright core. The northern component (NGC 6070B NED1) was also fairly faint and round, but smaller - about 15" diameter. NGC 6070C, just 1.3' NE [PA 35°], was brighter than either component of NGC 6070B and appeared moderately bright, fairly small, round, 20" diameter, moderately high surface brightness.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb