John Herschel discovered NGC 1953 = h2862 on 31 Jan 1835 and described as "pF, S, R, glbM, 40"." On a second sweep he recorded "pB, S, R, insulated, but has a group of four nebulae [NGC 1962, 1954, 1966, 1970] following in the parallel." His position is accurate.

600/800mm - 24" (4/7/08 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): at 200x, this LMC cluster appeared bright, moderately large, round,~50" diameter, with a brighter core. At 350x, it was grainy with a couple stars easily resolved at the edges of the halo. The nucleus appears offset from center towards the east. The interesting NGC 1962-65-66-70 HII complex and cluster follows with NGC 1962 4.5' due east and stretching quite a distance to the east and SE lie a huge number of clusters, star clouds and HII regions.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb