Andrew Cooper
Sep 7, 2021    Waikoloa, HI (map)
28cm f/10 SCT, NexStar 11" GyPSy @ 175x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

A poor cluster in a rich galactic starfield, bright and obvious, 10' diameter, coarse, resolved, a half dozen 9th magnitude stars in a loose clump, four stars forming a 2' x 3' box at the center

Andrew Cooper
Aug 8, 2013    Indian Springs, Oregon Star Party (map)
Regalo de Estrella 6" f/5.4 @ 26x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

Appears more like a cluster in a small 'scope, five stars in a 5' region, easy to find 3° east and a bit south of γCyg

Andrew Cooper
Oct 21, 2006    TIMPA, Avra Valley, AZ (map)
12x36 Canon Image Stabilized Binoculars

Easier to find with binos than a telescope, a distinct clump of several stars in the thick galactic starfield of central Cygnus, Messier must have been using low power when he located this cluster

Andrew Cooper
Sep 18, 1998    NASP, Chino Valley, AZ (map)
20cm f/10 SCT

This got an M#?! Trying to pick this out of the rich star field of Cygnus was not easy. Only confirmed when matched with the photo in Burnham.

William Herschel
Oct 27, 1794    Observatory House, Slough (map)

Is not sufficiently marked in the heavens to deserve notice, as 7 or 8 small stars together are so frequent about this part of the heavens that one might find them by hundreds.

Johann Elert Bode
Dec 5, 1774    Berlin Observatory, Germany (map)

On December 5, 1774, I saw in Cygnus, south of the star Gamma at the breast, a nebulous star cluster, and in the same night in Cassiopeia a similar cluster with the stars Zeta and Lambda at the head west of it in an obtuse-angled triangle.

Charles Messier
Jul 29, 1764    

A cluster of 7 or 8 very small stars, which are below Gamma Cygni, which one sees with an ordinary telescope of 3.5-foot in the form of a nebula. Its position determined from Gamma Cygni. Reported on chart of the Comet of 1779.

― Connaissance des Temps, 1781

Drawings, descriptions, and CCD photos are copyright Andrew Cooper unless otherwise noted, no usage without permission.

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