James Dunlop discovered NGC 6281 = D 556 = h3664 on 5 Jun 1826 and described "a curiously curved line of pretty bright small stars, with many very small stars mixt." Dunlop made 3 observations of the cluster and his position is 20' too far east. JH made a single observation on 28 Jun 1834 and recorded "a p rich, L, pB, cluster VII class, of loose stars 9, 10, 11th mag, which fills 2/3 of field." His position is on the double star HJ 4915 on the north side of the main group.

200/250mm - 8" (6/27/81): two dozen stars mag 9-11 in a distinct fairly bright, rectangular group of ~10' diameter.

400/500mm - 18" (6/12/10): this bright 10' diameter cluster was even resolved in my 80mm finder at 25x. Excellent in my 18" at 175x with roughly 50 resolved stars to mag 14 including two dozen brighter mag 9-10.5 stars in a distinctive, well-defined outline. Several double stars are involved including h4915 = 9/10.8 at 11" on the NE side and a 10" pair of mag 10.5/11.5 stars in the center. Several of the cluster's fainter stars are situated on the south side. A number of the brighter stars are in two strings forming a right angle. The northern line is oriented SW-NE and the southwest line is oriented NW-SE. The vertex is at the west end of these strings (NW edge of the cluster). NGC 6281 is located 2.5 degrees east of Mu1/2 Sco.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb