NGC 5641 was discovered by Édouard Stephan on 4 June 1880. John Louis Emil Dreyer inside the New General Catalogue, described the galaxy as "pretty bright, pretty small, a little extended, much brighter middle, mottled but not resolved?"[3] It was described in Burnham's Celestial Handbook as "pretty bright, pretty small, slightly elongated and much brighter in the middle".[5]Walter Scott Houston also noted that this galaxy was missed by William Herschel. He wrote "although NGC 5641 is only 2' long, this should not have been a problem for Herschel observing at 157x."[5]
Notes
^Calculated from Galactocentric GSR Distance modulus[2]