William Herschel discovered NGC 6596 = H VIII-55 = h2003 on 27 Jun 1786 (sweep 576) and recorded "a coarsely scattered cluster of large stars." His position is on the north side of the cluster. JH made a single observation and simply noted "a cluster with a triple star in it."

400/500mm - 17.5" (8/10/91): about two dozen stars in a 5' diameter. Unusual arrangement as the stars form a perfect ellipse outline elongated N-S. The brightest mag 10.5 star is at the north end. A small group is to the southeast of the mag 10.5 star. The ellipse is only broken on the east side and the center is void of stars. Two nice faint double stars are on the northwest side. Just barely stands out in a very rich field with many bright stars.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb