[6] The galaxy Maffei 1 was discovered on a hyper-sensitized I-N photographic plate exposed on 29 September 1967 with the Schmidt telescope at Asiago Observatory.

In 1970 Hyron Spinrad suggested that Maffei 1 is a nearby heavily obscured giant elliptical galaxy.

[6] Maffei 1 is located only 0.55° from the galactic plane in the middle of the zone of avoidance and suffers from about 4.7 magnitudes of extinction (a factor of about 1/70) in visible light.

In addition to extinction, observation of Maffei 1 is further hindered by the fact that it is covered by myriads of faint Milky Way stars, which can easily be confused with its own.

[2] In 1971, soon after its discovery, Hyron Spinrad estimated the distance to Maffei 1 at about 1 Mpc, which would place it within the Local Group of galaxies.

In 1983 this estimate was revised up to 2.1+1.3−0.8 Mpc by Ronald Buta and Marshall McCall using the general relation between the luminosity and velocity dispersion for elliptical galaxies.

[4] In 1993 Gerard Luppino and John Tonry used surface brightness fluctuations to derive a new distance estimate to Maffei 1 of 4.15 ± 0.5 Mpc.

Later in 2001, Tim Davidge and Sidney van den Bergh used adaptive optics to observe the brightest asymptotic giant branch stars in Maffei 1 and concluded that it is located at the distance 4.4+0.6−0.5 Mpc from the Sun.

[4][2] The latest determination of the distance to Maffei 1, which is based on the re-calibrated luminosity/velocity dispersion relation for the elliptical galaxies and the updated extinction, is 2.85 ± 0.36 Mpc, or over 9 million light years away.

The larger (≥3 Mpc) distances reported in the past 20 years would imply that Maffei 1 has never been close enough to the Local Group to significantly influence its dynamics.

[12] As a large elliptical galaxy, Maffei 1 is expected to host a significant population of globular clusters (about 1100).

[12] Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2000 revealed about 20 globular cluster candidates in the central region of the galaxy.