M94 was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 22, 1781. Getting the report of his friend, Charles Messier observed it, determined its position and cataloged it on March 24, 1781.

Spiral galaxy M94 was classified Sab because of its extremely bright inner region. This bright circular disk is surrounded by a ring of active star-forming regions, traced by blue young star clusters in color images, which sharply separates it from a much less bright outer ring of an older yellowish stellar population. In the outskirts, this region however ends again in a ring with moderate star formation activity, so that M94 is one of the relatively rare galaxies in which two "waves" of stellar formation can be observed.

The distance of M94 is not yet well-determined. Current best estimate is around 14.5 million light years. M94 forms a group of galaxy togother with M64. Group also consist from a number of fainter galaxies.

In 8" telescope M94 looks like small unresolved globular cluster. Core of this galaxy is very bright and it fades rather quickly to the edges. Appearance of M94 is quite similar to appearance of the M77.