William Herschel discovered NGC 7701 = H III-188 on 20 Sep 1784 (sweep 279) and recorded "eF, stellar. I did not verify this because it looked exactly like the former [NGC 7694] before I verified it." His position is 7' too far southwest, comparable to the offset for[NGC 7694, the previous object in the sweep. Heinrich d'Arrest measured the position on 4 nights, though questioned if it was NGC 7701 due to the discrepancy in position.

The data for NGC 7700 and 7701 are reversed in the ESGC, PGC and the first edition of the Deep Sky Field Guide.

400/500mm - 17.5" (11/30/91): fairly faint, fairly small, elongated 3:2 N-S, prominent core, stellar nucleus, halo gradually fades into background. A mag 11 star is 3.3' SW. Brightest in a group with NGC 7700 6.0' S, NGC 7699 3.0' SSW, NGC 7710 19' E and NGC 7694 20' NW.

600/800mm - 24" (9/22/17): at 260x; moderately bright, fairly small, elongated 5:2 N-S, well concentrated with a small bright elongated core. Brightest in a group (LGG 476) with NGC 7699 3' SSW, NGC 7700 6' S, IC 1501 18' S, NGC 7710 19' ESE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb