William Herschel discovered NGC 4194 = H II-867 = h1135 on 2 Apr 1791 (sweep 1001) amd noted "pB, vS, stellar." JH called it "F; vsmbM to a * 12m; 20"." His position is at the northwest edge of the galaxy.

The nickname Medusa Galaxy was coined by V-V in his Atlas of Interacting Galaxies, Part II: "Of this 'Medusa', the structure of the "head" is as yet unresolved. In this case, three galaxies apparently are coalescent. "Behind", the dwarfs begin to separate." William Keel repeats the nickname "Medusa" in his April 1993 article "The real astrophysical zoo - Colliding galaxies" in Mercury (ASP). Professional journal papers refer to it as "Medusa" since 2000.

400/500mm - 17.5" (5/13/88): moderately bright, small, elongated NW-SE, very small bright core, stellar nucleus.

900/1200mm - 48" (4/20/17): at 697x; bright, fairly large, elongated ~2:1 NNW-SSE. Sharply concentrated with a very bright elongated core enclosing an intensely bright nucleus. The main halo is roughly oval with a weak, elongated brightening oriented SW-NW at the south end. This low contrast feature is possibly the remnant of a past merger. A very low surface brightness tidal plume was seen as an ill-defined haze spreading out to the north from the NNW side of the main halo and increasing the N-S dimension to over 1.5'.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb