Heinrich d'Arrest discovered NGC 4871 = Big. 62 on 10 May 1863 and placed it 5 sec of time preceding NGC 4874, in the same parallel. This offset matches CGCG 160-227 = PGC 44606. Bigourdan independently discovered this galaxy on 16 May 1885 and recorded "mag 13.4; 10" dia, faint stellar nucl." Apparently Hermann Kobold also independently discovered this galaxy with the 18-inch refractor at the Strasbourg Observatory and listed it as Nova Kobold 8.

300/350mm - 13.1" (4/29/84): very faint, very small, round, very close companion of NGC 4874 just 1' W of center.

400/500mm - 17.5" (4/21/90): very faint, extremely small, round. Located 1.3' W of the center of NGC 4874 in the core of AGC 1656. A mag 12 star lies 1.2' S. Numerous galaxies are nearby including NGC 4873 1.8' NNE and NGC 4872 1.1' SE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb