William Herschel discovered NGC 4669 = H III-778 = GC 5668 on 14 Apr 1789 (sweep 921) and noted "cF, S, E." My re-reduced position (with respect to 77 UMa) is 1.5' northeast of UGC 7925. He reobserved this galaxy on 24 Mar 1791 (sweep 1001). JH mistakenly equated H III-778 with GC 3206 (NGC 4675). Dreyer observed NGC 4669 on 25 Apr 1878 at Birr Castle (noting "F, S, E n-s"), but referred to it as GC 3206 and he repeated this error in the NGC. In the same observation, Dreyer clearly observed UGC 7905 (pair described as "biN in pos 16.5°, dist 44"), but UGC 7905 didn't receive a NGC designation as he assumed it was NGC 4669!

Heinrich d'Arrest independently discovered NGC 4669 on 10 Dec 1866 and noted a mag 10-11 star followed by 21.5 seconds of time, confirming the identification with UGC 7925. Although Dreyer attributed d'Arrest with the discovery in the NGC, he equated H III-778 with NGC 4669 in his 1912 NGC Correction list.

400/500mm - 18" (6/28/03): faint, fairly small, elongated 2:1 N-S, 0.7'x0.35', fairly low nearly even surface brightness. Located 3.0' W of mag 9.8 SAO 28505 in a group (LGG 300) of 6 NGC galaxies. NGC 4675 lies 10.5' SE and NGC 4646 is 16' W.

600/800mm - 24" (5/30/16): fairly faint, moderately large, very elongated 7:2 N-S, 1.0'x0.3', small brighter core. Mag 9.7 HD 238159 is 3.0' ENE.

UGC 7905 = VV 708, located 8' WNW of NGC 4669, is a disturbed, interacting system with tidal tails extending from both galaxies. The pair is oriented SSW to NNE with centers separated by 35". At 225x, the southwest member (Mrk 220) appeared fairly faint, small, high surface brightness, roundish, 18" diameter. The northeast component (Mrk 221) appeared faint, fairly small, 18", low surface brightness. Only the central region was seen and I missed the tidal tail extending to the north and east. This pair was discovered by Dreyer, but didn't receive an NGC designation due to a misidentification.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb