William Herschel discovered NGC 1663 = H VIII-7 on 10 Feb 1783 (sweep 137) and described "A scattered cluster of stars. Large, intermixt with small (stars), not very rich." There is no grouping at his offset of 4m 0s preceding, and 1d 7' south of 4 Orionis. But Brent Archinal found a concentration of stars (~30 stars in 9') that is 1 minute of RA following H's position. The Lynga position, DSFG, NGC 2000, SC 2000 and RNGC all place the cluster too far west at 04 48.6 +13 09 and the cluster is plotted incorrectly on the first edition of U2000.

400/500mm - 17.5" (2/3/03): at 140x, ~20 stars are resolved in a scattered 6'-7' group. Includes a shallow arc of three brighter mag 10 stars on the SW side which may not be cluster members. Most of the mag 12-13 stars are concentrated in a 3' subgroup on the north side. Stands out reasonably well in the field although this group has been listed as a "possible open cluster remnant" - Bica et al., 2001A&A...366..827B. The Lynga position, DSFG, NGC 2000, SC 2000 and RNGC all place the cluster too far west by ~45 tsec of RA.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb