John Herschel discovered NGC 6444 = h3706 = D 597? on 7 Jun 1837 and recorded "A very fine L, rich sc cl of st 12...13m." His position is 40 seconds of RA too large, but marked the coordinates with a +/-, indicating uncertainty.

James Dunlop possibly discovered the cluster earlier on 28 Jun 1826 and logged Dun 597 as a "pretty large faint nebula, easily resolvable. This precedes a cluster of stars." Dunlop made a single observation and his position is 26' too far east-southeast, but this cluster is due west of M7 by 52', so this identification is certainly reasonable. RNGC misclassifies the number as nonexistent.

400/500mm - 17.5" (7/8/94): about 50 stars in a 10' string oriented due E-W. Stands out reasonably well in the field at 100x. Very uniform in mag 12-13 stars over some unresolved haze. A more ill defined branch of stars begins at the west end and trails NE. An arc of stars begins at the east end and curls back west on the south side. Located in the same low power field with globular NGC 6453 20' NE and 53' due west of the center of M7.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb