John Herschel discovered NGC 2147 = h2997 on 30 Jan 1835 and logged "vF; R; bM; 30"." On a second sweep he also noted "connected with stars, etc." The "stars" probably refers to S-L 785.

NGC 2147 was possibly discovered by James Dunlop on 27 Sep 1826 with his 9" reflector. He described D 191 as "a pretty bright round nebula, 40" diameter". His position is 12' west of the cluster, a typical error. Also D 190, described as "two very small faint nebulae" is roughly at the same position, so could also apply to this object. Herschel didn't reference these possible earlier discoveries by Dunlop and neither does Glen Cozens.

600/800mm - 30" (10/13/15 - OzSky): at 394x; very bright, small, roundish cluster, 25" diameter. Contains a very small, extremely bright core. Three or four stars are resolved in the small halo on the west side and south side. Located 3.6' NNW of mag 9.9 HD 270358 and 9.5' S of mag 7.6 HD 40810. A shallow arc of 3 mag 13/13.9/14.2 stars lies 2' SE. Just north of these is a small group of resolved mag 15-15.5 stars. The collection is catalogued as S-L 785 and is part of association LH 122. The red DSS shows a thick wreath of faint nebulosity nearly enclosing S-L 785, but I didn't notice it, at least without a filter. NGC 2160 lird 15' ESE.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb