Heinrich d'Arrest found NGC 4338 on 19 May 1863 and described "vF, E, cometary, quite difficult to see because of dusk. The place has not yet been verified." There is nothing at his position, but exactly 1.0 min of time west is NGC 4310, discovered by WH. d'Arrest measured NGC 4310 on 3 other nights, but not the one he recorded NGC 4338. Harold Corwin equates NGC 4338 = NGC 4310.

RNGC, RC3, SIMBAD and secondary sources such as WikiSky, Uranometria 2000. Atlas and Megastar misidentify IC 3247 as NGC 4338. IC 3247 is located 20' south of d'Arrest's position. Reinmuth also questioned if NGC 4338 = IC 3247 but Malcolm Thomson feels this galaxy is too faint and would not have been visible in d'Arrest's 11-inch refractor in twilight -- I agree.

400/500mm - 17.5" (5/23/98): fairly faint, fairly small, elongated 2:1 NW-SE, 1.2'x0.6', weak concentration. A wide pair of mag 12 stars [1.3' separation] lies 4' S. The nearer star has a mag 14 companion at 24".

17.5" (4/25/98): fairly faint, elongated 2:1 NW-SE, 1.4'x0.7', broad concentration. The trio of NGC 4278, NGC 4283 and NGC 4286 lies ~30' NW. Observation affected by hazy skies.

600/800mm - 24" (5/30/16): at 225x; extremely faint, thin edge-on ~5:1 N-S, very low surface brightness, very slightly brighter elongated core, ~45"x9". Only visible part of the time, though pops clearly and can hold for a few seconds.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb