Édouard Stephan discovered NGC 658 = St IX-1 on 27 Nov 1880 with the 31" reflector at the Marseille Observatory and recorded "very faint, very small, irregular, brighter in the middle." His position matches UGC 1192 = PGC 6275. This galaxy was independently found by Lewis Swift on 17 Sep 1885 with a 16" refractor at Warner Observatory and reported it in list II-13. His position and description is good, though he criticized Stephan's description by writing "pB; pL; vE; nearly bet 2 pB st. If this is Stephan's No 1 of his catalogue of 60 nebulae, A.N. 2390, then his description is wrong in every particular."

400/500mm - 17.5" (1/1/92): fairly faint, moderately large, elongated 2:1 SSW-NNE, broad concentration, fairly faint small core. Located 4' SSW of mag 8.8 SAO 92587.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb