John Herschel discovered NGC 4071 = h3374 on 4 Mar 1835 and recorded "vF; R; 40"; has a vS star in centre; in a field of at least 80 or 90 stars." His position is accurate. The "vS star" he mentions might be the one on the southwest side.

400/500mm - 18" (7/6/05 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): I had a difficult time ferreting out this faint PN that is buried within a very rich Milky Way field. It was finally picked up at 76x (27 Panoptic) and OIII filter as a faint, round disc at least 40" in diameter. Removing the filter, a faint star was superimposed on the SW side of a low surface brightness glow. Also viewed unfiltered at 228x which showed the faint star and the disc more easily, though this is quite faint for NGC planetary. The best view was at 128x using an OIII filter, although NGC 4071 has a low-excitation level. The disc appeared fairly faint with subtle irregularities in surface brightness and was likely brighter along portions of the rim.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb