James Dunlop discovered NGC 2159 = D 193 on 6 Nov 1826 and recorded "pB; R; well-defined, 12"." He made a single obervation and his position is just 3' S of this cluster.

John Herschel observed the cluster (h3007) on 4 sweeps, first reporting on 23 Nov 1834, "pF; S; irreg R; psbM; 25"." Next he logged it as "pF; S; R; the second of three [with NGC 2156 and 2164]." On the third sweep he logged "pB; S; R; has a *15m close to the edge, nf". Herschel attributed Dunlop with the discovery.

Pietro Baracchi observed the cluster on 3 Jan 1886 with the 48" Melbourne telescope and wrote, "pB; S; R; mottled. I believe that there are at the least several stars in it." He indicated two stars on his diagram on the NNW (mag 15) and WNW (mag 16) edge of the object.

600/800mm - 24" (4/11/08 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): at 200x this cluster appeared bright, fairly small, slightly elongated, 0.9'x0.7'. A brighter star is at the north edge. At 350x, at least three additional faint stars are resolved on the north side and the appearance is asymmetric as the cluster is brighter on the north side. Located 8' SW of NGC 2164 and 10' S of NGC 2156. NGC 2172 lies 11' ESE, NGC 2140 is 20' WNW and S-L 791 is 6' W.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb