William Herschel discovered NGC 4250 = H I-264 = h1170 on 7 Apr 1793 (sweep 1037) and noted "cB, S, bM." His position is 1.0 tmin west of UGC 7329. John Herschel logged "pF S; R pgbM; 15"."

Philip Keenan apparently found NGC 4250 on a Yerkes Observatory plate and assigned it the designation NGC 4250A. It was included in a list of new nebulae in the 1935 paper "Studies of Extra-Galactic Nebulae, Part I: Determination of Magnitudes" (ApJ, 82, 62). All objects were assigned NGC + letter designations based on the nearest NGC object on the plate. He assigned a magnitude of 13.5.

400/500mm - 17.5" (5/2/92): moderately bright, small, round, broad concentration with overall high surface brightness. The halo appears to extend further on the north side of the core.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb