Albert Marth discovered NGC 6384 = m 339 = St II-14 on 10 Jun 1863 and noted "pB, S, vlE." This is the brightest galaxy that Marth discovered, although his position is 4' too far north. Heinrich d'Arrest independently rediscovered NGC 6384 on 8 Apr 1866 with the 11-inch refractor at Copenhagen. In addition, Édouard Stephan found it again on 19 Jul 1870 and reported it new in list II-14.

200/250mm - 8" (6/22/81): faint, diffuse, slightly elongated, brighter core.

400/500mm - 17.5" (7/20/90): moderately bright with a large core slightly elongated SSW-NNE, broad moderate concentration, large faint halo. Two mag 12 stars are at the SE and NE ends 1.3' and 1.7' from center, respectively.

600/800mm - 24" (8/14/15): at 260x; fairly bright, fairly large, elongated 3:2 SSW-NNE. There are three distinct zones. Towards the center is a sharply concentrated, bright, elongated 2:1 nucleus. The nucleus is surrounded by an oval central region, roughly 1.5'x1.0'. The central region is surrounded by a large, very low surface brightness halo, extending ~4.0'x2.5'. Although spiral structure was not seen, the outer regions were noted as irregular. A mag 12.5 star is on the northeast side of the halo, 1.8' from center, and a mag 13.3 star is 1.3' SE of center.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb