William Herschel discovered NGC 2401 = H VII-65 = h454 on 8 Mar 1793 (sweep 1034) and recorded "a small cluster of vS stars, considerably rich and compressed." His position is just off the southeast side of the cluster, but close enough to be unambiguous.

300/350mm - 13.1" (1/11/86): About 7 very faint mag 13.5-15 stars resolved over haze, unimpressive. Located in a very rich field 7' W of mag 7.2 SAO 152963.

400/500mm - 18" (3/2/08): at 225x appears as a rich, glowing 1.5' knot with roughly a dozen very faint mag 14-15.5 stars peppered over the glow. Appears rich with averted but only partially resolved. A mag 7 star (HD 59543) is the field, 7' ESE. Situated in a rich Milky Way star field at 175x with a patchy background.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb