James Dunlop discovered NGC 2157 = D 161 on 6 Nov 1826 with his 9" speculum reflector and described "a small faint nebula, 15" diameter; a small star near the north preceding edge." Dunlop made a single observation and his position is 6.8' too far SW. Despite the small size estimate, there is a mag 11 star off the NW edge.

John Herschel recorded this cluster (h3006) on 4 sweeps, first recording "vB, R, gbM, 30"." On a second sweep he logged "globular cluster, vB, R, vgvmbM, resolvable." JH noted a very uncertain (??) identification with D 161.

Pietro Baracchi logged this object on 3 Jan 1886 with the 48" Melbourne telescope as "Cl; vB; R; gpmbM; Diam 55"." His sketch shows two resolved stars (marked as 17th mag) just off the SE side.

600/800mm - 30" (10/13/15 - OzSky): extremely bright, very large, 1.3' diameter, strong concentration with a very bright, large core, very mottled appearance, showpiece (globular?) cluster. At 394x, several obvious mag 14.8-15.5 stars were resolved in the halo and around the edges. With careful viewing the core broke up into a few dozen extremely packed stars (too tight and faint to count). A mag 11.4 star is 1.4' WNW of center. NGC 2151 lies 13' NNW. These clusters are on the east end of the LMC.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb