William Herschel discovered NGC 4222 = H II-109 on 8 Apr 1784 (sweep 187) and simply noted "resolvable". Dreyer commented in his 1912 "Scientific Papers of WH" that the observation was probably rushed as the polar distance is 20' too far south, though my reduction is 10' south. Wilhelm Tempel corrected the position in his first list (T I-40) and in paper V providing an offset from NGC 4216.

CGCG, UGC, MCG and PGC incorrectly equate IC 3087 (from Schwassmann) with NGC 4222. IC 3087 refers to two stars to the southeast of the galaxy.

400/500mm - 17.5" (1/23/88): faint, moderately large, very thin edge-on SW-NE. A mag 15 star is at the east end. Located 5' W of mag 8.7 SAO 100016. This is the third of three edge-ons with NGC 4206 23' SW and NGC 4216 12' SW in Virgo.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb