George Johnstone Stoney, Lord Rosse's assistant, discovered NGC 7553 along with NGC 7549, on 2 Nov 1850. While he was reobserving NGC 7547 and 7550 he found "4 neb in the field, perhaps another [including NGC 7547 and 7550]." The 4th brightest galaxy in the field is CGCG 454-015, and this was likely seen by Stoney. The 6 Sep 1855 description reads "3 neb NGC 7547, 7550, 7549], F, S, and perhaps 2 more vS and F f[ollowing] them." A diagram of the field was made at Birr Castle on 6 Oct 1877 and confirmed on 10 Oct 1877 showing four objects including NGC 7547, 7549 and NGC 7550, although the direction of drift shown is somewhat off. The object shown in the upper right corner of the diagram should be CGCG 454-015, but the placement better matches 16th magnitude 2MASX J23153890+1858171. Perhaps it's one of the others that were suspected.

400/500mm - 17.5" (9/7/96): very faint, very small, round. Located 3.9' E of NGC 7549 = HCG 93b. An extremely faint and close double star ~1.5' SE also appears as a nebulous object at times. Faintest of five (along with NGC 7558) in HCG 93.

600/800mm - 24" (12/28/13 and 9/27/19): faint to fairly faint, fairly small, round, 20"-24" diameter, nearly even surface brightness. A 12" pair of mag 15.5 stars was resolved 1.3' SE. In addition, a 7" pair of mag 16.1/16.4 stars was noticed 3.5' ENE and often was merged into a single slightly fuzzy glow at 282x.

24" (12/1/13): faint to fairly faint, small, round, 20" diameter. Contains a faint, quasi-stellar nucleus. Located 3.8' ENE of NGC 7549 in HCG 93.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb