William Herschel discovered NGC 6338 = H II-812 on 24 Apr 1789 (last object in sweep 928) and noted "F, S, R, vglbM. The increase at a distance from the center." His position (CH's reduction) is 30 sec of RA west of UGC 10784. Bigourdan measured an accurate RA and noted the NGC RA was 16 seconds too small in the 18 Jan 1897 Comptes Rendus paper.

MCG misidentifies CGCG 299-067 (just north) as NGC 6338 and labels NGC 6338 as NGC 6345. Error noted by Malcolm Thomson.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/18/88): fairly faint, fairly small, oval SW-NE, broad concentration. Brightest in a group with NGC 6345 4' S and NGC 6346 6' S in field.

600/800mm - 24" (7/21/17): NGC 6338 is the brightest in a compact group of 10 galaxies that was viewed at 375x. It appeared bright, moderately large, slightly elongated ~N-S, 1.25'x1.0'. Moderately concentrated with a bright core that increases to a small brighter nucleus.

The following galaxies lie within 7' distance: CGCG 299-067 = VII Zw 700 is 1.2' N, NGC 6345 is 3.7' S, IC 1252 is 4.6' SE, NGC 6346 is 5.3' S, LEDA 2566799 (V = 15.5) is 5.6' NNE, LEDA 2567181 (V = 15.9) is 6.8' N and IC 1250 is 7.3' W. CGCG 299-067, a merged double system with twin nuclei just 6" separation, appeared faint to fairly faint, small, round, 20" diameter. A 20" pair of 13th magnitude stars is less than 1' NNE. The object was suspected to be double but the nuclei were not cleanly resolved.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb