Andrew Cooper
Dec 12, 2021    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 136x
Seeing: 6 Transparency: 7 Moon: 0%

A pair of 10th magnitude stars surrounded by a faint glow, a bit more magnification resolves this glow into a cluster of faint 12-13th magnitude stars within 2' of the pair in a rich galactic starfield

Andrew Cooper
Dec 12, 2004    Sentinel, AZ (map)
46cm f/4.5 Deep Violet

Small, poor, about two dozen stars in a small clump, rich galactic star field

Captain William Henry Smyth
Jan 1, 1833    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A neat but minute double star, in a cluster, under Orion's left shoulder and in an outcropping of the Galaxy. A 9½ and B 10, both pale yellow. This is a tolerably rich and compressed mass of stars, from the 9th to the 16th magnitudes, with numerous stragglers. It was discovered by Herschel in 1786, and is No. 384 of his son's great Catalogue; but the reference in the latter to No. 2288 of the Double-star Sweeps, ought to have been 2301.

To fish up this object, pass a line from Rigel through the lower star of Orion's belt, and carry it a little more than as far again to the north- east, where it will strike the cluster at about 4° south-east of Betelgeuze.

― A Cycle of Celestial Objects Vol II, The Bedford Catalogue, William Henry Smyth, 1844