Guillaume Bigourdan discovered NGC 4465 = Big 54 on 31 Mar 1886. The NGC position is just 3 sec of RA too large, although it was not found by Arnold Schwassmann on a Heidelberg plate (probably appeared stellar).

900/1200mm - 48" (5/15/12): At 488x appeared fairly faint, small, slightly elongated WNW-ESE, 20"x15", weak concentration. A mag 16.8 star is just off the NE side [12" from center]. This is one of several faint galaxies outside the halo of M49 (situated 5.9' WNW of center) with brighter NGC 4467 2.6' SE. According to the redshift, though, this galaxy lies in the background of the Virgo cluster at a distance of ~330 million light years.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb