William Herschel discovered NGC 7031 = H VIII-74 = h2105 on 21 Sep 1788 (sweep 860) and recorded "a coarsely sc cl of L stars, not very rich, about 5 or 6' diam." JH made the single observation "a curious scattered cluster of triple stars; RA taken from the working list [of Caroline Herschel]."

400/500mm - 17.5" (8/10/91): at 220x, about two dozen stars mag 11-15 in a 6' diameter. At the east edge is close double star 11.4/11.8 with a third mag 11.5 star close SW. A nice string of stars is along the north side extending NW from the trio including a close double star 12/13 1' N. A mag 11 star is on south side but the rest of the stars are mag 13-15. Not very rich but stands out in a rich field. The cluster is fairly scattered except for this region with brighter stars. At 410x, I used the sequence of magnitudes in Clark's Visual Astronomy to positively identify a faint V = 16.1 star and suspected a V = 16.3 star.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb