Lewis Swift discovered NGC 6470 = Sw. IV-56, along with NGC 6456, on 9 Jun 1886 and logged "eeeF; vS; R; ee dif; f of 2 [with NGC 6456]. His position is 4 tsec W and 0.4' south (41" southwest) of UGC 10974. Although several other galaxies are very nearby, including UGC 10973 just 1' south of his position, UGC 10974 is the brightest one and the mostly likely to have picked up by Swift. On 25 Sep he went through the cluster again and picked up several fainter galaxies, whose identities are not well determined.

RNGC, UGC, CGCG and MCG misidentify UGC 10973 as NGC 6470. See Harold Corwin's identification notes for NGC 6456.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/11/88): very faint, very small, slightly elongated, small bright core. A mag 14 star is off the NE edge 0.7' from center. Member of the NGC 6456 group with NGC 6472 1.3' NW, NGC 6471 1.6' S, NGC 6477 1.5' SE and NGC 6463 4.0' W.

600/800mm - 24" (8/23/14): at 375x appeared faint, fairly small, slightly elongated N-S, 24"x18", small bright core. A mag 14 star is 0.7' NE. Brightest in a rich knot of galaxies with NGC 6471 = UGC 10973 1.6' SSW and NGC 6472 = PGC 2703230 1.3' NW and NGC 6477 = PGC 2702901 1.5' SE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb