William Herschel discovered NGC 4111 = H I-195 = h1088 on 14 Jan 1788 (sweep 798) and recorded "E sp nf, vBN with faint branches. His position and description matches UGC 7103. On 6 Feb 1788 (sweep 810) he made another observation and also discovered NGC 4117. John Herschel first recorded (sweep 150) "B; S; mE; sbM; a double star point to its nucleus."

300/350mm - 13.1" (4/12/86): fairly bright, pretty edge-on, small very bright core, faint thin arms. Located 5' SW of a mag 8 star. In a group with NGC 4109 5' SSW and NGC 4117 8.5' WSW.

400/500mm - 17.5" fairly bright, fairly large, edge-on 5:1 NW-SE, small very bright core, long thin extensions. A double star with components mag 8.2/10.7 at 34" separation lies 3.8' NE. Brightest in a group with NGC 4109 4.8' SW and NGC 4117 8.7' WSW.

600/800mm - 24" (5/30/16): at 225x; very bright, beautiful edge-on ~7:1 NNW-SSE, 3.5'x0.5'. Sharply concentrated with a small very bright elongated core, with an unusually bright quasi-stellar nucleus. An extremely faint star or stellar knot was suspected near the southeast end. A very wide unequal pair (HJ 2596) with a orange mag 8.1 primary lies 3.7' NE.

NGC 4111 is the brightest in a group (LGG 269 = UMa NED4 Group) containing NGC 4109 4.8' SSW (background object), NGC 4117 8.6' NE, NGC 4118 9.4' NE, UGC 7094 11.6' SW and UGC 7089 12.8' NW. All of these galaxies with the exception of UGC 7089 are roughly aligned in a 20' string oriented SW-NE. UGC 7094 appeared very faint, very elongated 4:1 SW-NE, 1.0'x0.25', very low surface brightness with no noticeable concentration.

900/1200mm - 48" (3/1/19): at 488x; stunning edge-on ~8:1 NNW-SSE with a bulging core, ~4.0'x0.5'. Sharply concentrated with an extremely bright, very elongated bulging core. The nucleus is very small and brilliant! Due to dust lanes that run perpendicular to the major axis, the galaxy was slightly brighter on the centerline of the major axis on both sides of the core. The arms taper slightly with a spindle appearance. A very faint star (~17th mag) is at the SW end of the galaxy.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb