History

The brightest two galaxies in this group were discovered by John Herschel on 17^th August 1828 using his 18.25 inch reflecting telescope at Slough, England. He cataloged his discoveries as h 16 and h 17. For h 16 (NGC 80) he noted: «faint; small; round; pretty suddenly brighter in the middle; 15" [diameter] .» For h 17 (NGC 83) he noted: «elliptical; perhaps bicentral; makes trapezium with three bright stars.» ^[466]

The galaxies NGC 90 and NGC 93 were discovered on 26^th October 1854 by R. J. Mitchell. NGC 81 and NGC 85 were discovered on 15^th November 1873 by Ralph Copeland. Both were using the giant 72 inch reflector from William Parsons, 3^rd Earl of Rosse, at Birr Castle. The remaining galaxies of this group were discovered by the French astronomer Guillaume Bigourdan in October/November 1884. He was using the 12.4 inch refractor at Paris Observatory. IC 1542 was discovered on 20^th November 1897 by the French astronomer Stephane Javelle. He was using the 30 inch refractor at the Nice Observatory ^{[196, 277]}

In Halton Arp's «Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies» from 1966 the two galaxies NGC 90 and NGC 93 are listed as Arp 65. He noted: «Position of open spiral. Components lie off projected ends of both spiral arms.» ^[199]