William Herschel discovered NGC 6088 = H III-812 on 24 Apr 1789 (sweep 928) and noted "vF, vS, lE." His RA (CH's reduction) is 30 sec preceding MCG +10-23-029/030 = PGC 57383. Bigourdan measured an accurate position on 27 Apr 1886 (repeated in the IC 2 Notes).

This double system (oriented northwest-southeast) is listed in the RNGC as NGC 6088A and 6088B and the MCG also has two entries.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/15/91): very faint, small, elongated 2:1 NW-SE, weak concentration. Located 6.6' E of mag 8.6 SAO 29827. This is a double system on the POSS, although in the observation the two components were not individually resolved.

600/800mm - 24" (6/28/14): at 375x appeared faint, fairly small, elongated 5:3 NW-SE, ~25"x15", weak concentration with no defined core or nucleus. Forms a very close double with MCG +10-23-030 = PGC 57384 at the southeast edge [22" between centers]. The companion was seen as an extremely faint glow, very small, ~12" diameter. In moments of good seeing, it was barely detached from NGC 6088. The two components form a physical pair at roughly 245 million l.y.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb