On the evening of June 17th 1890, E.E. Barnard shared the 36-inch dome at Lick Observatory with Sherbourne Wesley Burnham to search for d'Arrest's Comet. Barnard recorded in his logbook, "Saw at least 3 nebulae. One was much elongated and with perhaps a small one close following [no position estimated]. The other two were small and indefinite. One was between two stars."

Barnard made a simple sketch showing a nebulous object [galaxy] between two mag 9/11 stars oriented SE and NW and slightly closer to the fainter NW star - a perfect match with LEDA 3864456 = 2MASX J16215957+1224109, a 16th magnitude galaxy in Hercules. He later added (after returning to the 12-inch dome), "It is with the utmost difficulty that I can see the nebula with the 12-inch. It is vS and vF."

A second "nebula" was described as "small, pretty bright, round, is 35' +/- preceding this and 1' N". The next night Barnard observed in the big dome again (along with Burnham) and returned to these two objects with the 36-inch Clark refractor. This time he logged, "the [western] one precedes the other by 2min 21s (by watch) and is ½' N. The following is the one between the two stars." Using this offset, it's easy to identify the western galaxy as LEDA 1408945, another 16th magnitude galaxy.

Barnard never published these (along with many other) discoveries at Lick, so neither galaxy received an NGC/IC designation and today are only known by modern survey designations such as 2MASS and SDSS.

Using my 24-inch I took a look at LEDA 3864456 (16 21 59.6 +12 24 11, J2000) a week ago at the Golden State Star Party under SQM 21.7 skies. Using 322x and 375x, LEDA 3864456 appeared very faint, very small, round, ~12" diameter, visible nearly 100% of the time with averted vision and concentration. This tiny galaxy is situated between mag 9.9 SAO 102106 0.9' SE and a mag 13.9 star 0.5' NW.

I'm quite impressed this galaxy could be glimpsed with the Lick 12-inch Clark refractor (the derived SDSS magnitudes are roughly V = 15.6, B = 16.5) - but then again we're talking about E.E. Barnard. If anyone takes a look with a 12" to 18" scope, I'd be interested in hearing your results.