William Herschel discovered NGC 4179 = H I-9 = h1126 on 24 Jan 1784 (sweep 118) and recorded "F, vS, E." JH logged "pB; S; mE; a ray with a nucleus pos 45° np to sf." The NGC position (from JH) matches UGC 7215.

David Todd found this galaxy on 5 Jan 1878 during his search for a trans-Neptunian planet and recorded it as object 15 in his list of suspected objects.

400/500mm - 17.5" (3/24/90): bright, fairly small, very distinctive edge-on system oriented NW-SE, very bright core, sharp light cut-off along the SW flank. A string of mag 11 stars trail off to the NE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb