John Herschel discovered NGC 5288 = h3534 on 3 Apr 1835 and recorded "a faint, oblong, elliptic cluster of stars 14m; glbM; 4' l; 2 1/2' br." On a second sweep he logged "a small, irreg R, very compact knot of milky way; gvlbM; stars 14m; a * 8m precedes."

400/500mm - 18" (7/6/05 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): at 128x this is a faint but fairly distinctive group of nearly two dozen mag 12.5-14 stars elongated SSW-NNE. It stands out well, being detached in the general field and situated just 3' NE of a yellow mag 7.9 star (HD 119941) that highlights this delicate group. At 228x, the cluster is somewhat concentrated with a roundish swarm of ~15 stars in the center and two strings of several stars extending in opposite directions to the SSW and NNE giving an overall size of 4'x2'. A number of mag 11-12 stars pepper the surrounding 29' field at 128x.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb