Lewis Swift discovered NGC 6817 = Sw. II-81 on 10 Sep 1885 and recorded "eeF; pS; lE; a curve of stars west like Northern Crown." His position is 12 seconds of RA too far west. Bigourdan measured an accurate position on 30 Aug 1889 as well as Howe in 1899-00 at Denver. The "curve of stars" in the description begins 3.5' WSW.

400/500mm - 17.5" (8/13/88): very faint, fairly small, elongated ~E-W, weak concentration. A mag 15 star is off the NE edge and an extremely faint mag 16 star is off the NW edge. This is a very close double system oriented E-W, although apparently the individual components were too faint to resolve separately.

600/800mm - 24" (8/13/15): this double system was resolved at 375x and 500x. The brighter galaxy is on the east side and appeared fairly faint, small, slightly elongated NW-SE, ~24"x18". A mag 15.5 star is close north-northeast [26" from center] and a mag 16.1 star lies 39" NW. The companion galaxy is just off the west side [16" between centers] and extremely to very faint (V = 15.7, B = 16.5), round, only 6"-8" diameter! On the SDSS the halos of the two galaxies are merged and the brighter eastern component is tidally disturbed.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb