Guillaume Bigourdan found IC 4470 = Big. 421 on 11 Jul 1887. His full description (from Corwin) reads "Object which, at first sight, could be nebulous, but in which I suspect several stellar points. It is therefore a cluster enveloped in nebulosity; it is vaguely elongated at 90 degrees and is 1' l and 40" wide." His position is within 1' of CGCG 353-040 = PGC 51696.

While working through CH's 1802 "Fair Copy" of WH's sweeps on 10 Jun 2014, I found WH discovered this edge-on galaxy during his observation of H III-950 = NGC 5712 on 20 Dec 1797 (sweep 1074): "It is preceded by a small patch of stars which appears almost like this nebula, but more resolved." This sounds very similar to Bigourdan's description and certainly applies to IC 4470 (Harold Corwin and Wolfgang Steinicke concur). Wolfgang included it in his "WH Special" list of 22 Jun 2014.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/24/95): very faint, very small, round. A mag 14.5 star is just off the NE side, 21" from center, and it confused the observation. At moments, the compact core of the galaxy and the star appeared to form a faint double star. I missed the faint extensions (arm) E-W on the POSS. Forms a pair with NGC 5712 4.0' ESE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb