William Herschel discovered NGC 4694 = H II-72 = h1434 on 15 Mar 1784 (sweep 174) and noted "S, lE. The 2nd figure of the minutes was in the great hurry forgot to put down; but I suppose it was intended for 31 min." The estimated RA is 1 min too small. John Herschel made up for this by measuring the RA accurately on 6 sweeps, the earliest on 9 May 1825 (sweep 4), when he called it "pB, round, gmbM."

400/500mm - 17.5" (5/14/94): fairly bright, elongated 5:2 NW-SE, 2.5'x1.0', overall high surface brightness, faint halo with an abrupt bright core and stellar nucleus. A mag 14.5 star lies 1.3' W of center.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb