John Herschel discovered NGC 808 = h192 = h2458 on 14 Oct 1830 and logged "vF; R; vgbM; 40" [diameter]." He observed it again from the Cape of Good Hope and noted, "vF, lE, gbM, 25"." Joseph Turner sketched NGC 808 on 10 Nov 1876 using the 48" Great Melbourne Telescope (plate I, figure 5) and described it as small, faint, considerably elongated, brighter in the middle, no appearance of resolvability.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/8/94): fairly faint, fairly small, elongated 2:1 SSW-NNE, very weakly concentrated along the major axis. A string of three mag 14 stars extending NW are collinear with the galaxy and equally spaced at 1.0' separation.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb