William Herschel discovered NGC 4774 = H III-618 = h1471 on 17 Mar 1787 (sweep 714) and noted "eF, vS." JH logged "eF; S; R: bM. Sky perfectly clear" and measured an accurate position.

400/500mm - 17.5" very faint, small, round, even surface brightness. Appeared fainter than the CGCG mag of 14.6p.

900/1200mm - 48" (4/7/13): at 488x this collisional ring galaxy appeared fairly bright, fairly small, slightly elongated E-W, irregular. It appeared slightly brighter on the north side, which contained a faint stellar nucleus, but I didn't resolve the darker center. Forms a close pair with LEDA 2087677, about 30" N of center. The companion, which is identified as the collider in Madore's collisional ring catalogue, appeared very faint (V = 16.7), very small, round, 9" diameter.

NGC 4774 is nicknamed the "Kidney Bean Galaxy" by Zwicky in his red book (I Zw 45). It was first mentioned as a ring galaxy in 1970 by Cannon, Lloyd, Penston in "Ring galaxies" (The Observatory, Vol. 90, p. 153-154) and it is listed as a collisional ring in Madore, Nelson and Petrillo's 2009 "Atlas and Catalog of Collisional Ring Galaxies" (ApJS, Vol 181, p. 572-604).

Notes by Steve Gottlieb