William Herschel discovered NGC 2215 = H VII-20 = h386 on 1 Nov 1785 (sweep 468) and recorded "a cl of coarsely but pretty evenly scattered pS stars, of nearly the same magnitude, coarsely round and about 15' diam." His summary description (based on 3 sweeps) reads "a beautiful cluster of pretty compressed and equally scattered stars, 10' or 12' diameter."

400/500mm - 17.5" (12/28/94): about 50 stars mag 11-14 in a 12' region, pretty evenly distributed and stands out well in the field at 100x. At the west edge is a faint detached group of 8 stars. Near the center are several wide pairs and one close evenly matched fainter pair. The cluster is not well defined on the east side and merges into the general field.

17.5" (2/1/92): 30 stars mag 11-14 in 10' diameter, fairly bright, elongated ~E-W, pretty evenly distributed, fairly rich although there no dense areas. Includes about 10 mag 11 stars but there is no single dominant star. The remainder are mag 12-14. Set over background haze. Stands out well in low power field.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb