Guillaume Bigourdan discovered IC 1590 = Big 366 on 31 Oct 1899 and recorded "a large number of stars forming a very large cluster without concentration. Seen in the region of NGC 281." His position is 3' southeast of this group of stars centered on Burnham 1.

400/500mm - 17.5" (9/28/02): IC 1590 is a young star cluster embedded in the core of NGC 281. The bright central quadruple (ADS 719 = Burnham 1) contains a bright mag 8.6/9.2/9.8 trio at 4" and 9". At 140x, a fourth fainter companion (mag ~10.1) at 1.54" separation is just visible close following the brightest member and is cleanly resolved at 324x.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb