William Herschel discovered NGC 3877 = H I-201 on 5 Feb 1788 (sweep 808) and recorded "pB, mE nearly in the meridian, 4 or 5' long, 1' broad." His RA (CH's reduction) is 10 sec too large.

400/500mm - 17.5" (4/18/98): Viewed 13.5 magnitude supernova SNGC 1998S as an easy object on the south side of the core.

17.5" (4/6/91): moderately bright, very elongated 4:1 SW-NE, 4.5'x1.1', bright core, faint stellar nucleus. A mag 10.5 star is 3.8' NNW of center. Located 16' S of Chi Ursa Majoris (V = 3.7).

17.5" (4/7/89): fairly bright, large, very elongated, bright core, faint stellar nucleus.

600/800mm - 24" (5/27/17): at 200x; very bright, very large, excellent edge-on 4:1 SW-NE, ~4.5' length and 1' wide. The central region appears mottled and contains a fairly small brighter core with a sharp, intense stellar nucleus. The ends of the SW and NE extensions are irregular in brightness (brighter streaks) and don't narrow at the ends. At times they seemed warped, perhaps due to the patchy brightness. NGC 3738 is 16' NW. Member of the NGC 3992 (M109) group = LGG 258 and brightest in the NGC 3877 subgroup.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb