Heinrich d'Arrest discovered NGC 5471 on 22 Aug 1863 with the 11-inch refractor at Copenhagen and measured it on 5 different nights. He noted the mag 13 star that precedes by 9 sec of RA and questioned if this object was H III-789 with a 30 sec error in RA. MCG misclassifies this HII region as a galaxy (MCG +09-23-030).

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/7/97): this is one of brightest HII regions in M101, on the extreme NE end of the galaxy 11.5' from center. Appears as a moderately bright knot, ~20" diameter. This HII region stands out well due to its isolation and fairly high surface brightness with crisp halo.

600/800mm - 24" (5/24/20): one of the most prominent HII regions in M101, situated 11.5' ENE of center, beyond the visible edge of the galaxy. At 375x it appeared very bright, fairly small, round, ~20" diameter, high surface brightness. HII region M101-A is 3' NW.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb