William Herschel discovered NGC 7044 = H VI-24 = h2110 on 17 Oct 1786 (sweep 612) and recorded "a very compressed and very rich cluster of extremely S stars, about 4' l and 3' br. Elongated nearly in the parallel." On 24 Oct 1786 (sweep 620) he also logged "a cl. of extremely small stars, very compressed wand very rich, about 6' l and 4' br." On 29 Aug 1829, JH reported "vF; L; irreg fig; p rich; not mbM; 2 or 3 pL stars, the rest 16...18m; 5' diam."

200/250mm - 8" (8/12/83): about 10 faint mag 12/13 stars over unresolved haze, unimpressive. Elongated N-S, small but not rich. Some scattered bright stars are in field to the NE.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/5/91): at 100x, faint, small, a few stars are resolved over a 4' glowing spot. At 200x, about 20 faint stars are resolved over background haze, 4' diameter, irregular outline. A wide pair of brighter mag 10.5/12.5 stars is at the east edge. About 10 mag 12-13 stars are clearly visible and 10 additional mag 14-15 stars are visible with averted vision. Appears like a partially resolved low surface brightness globular cluster in a rich field.

600/800mm - 24" (7/30/16): at 375x and 500x; perhaps a total of 50 stars in a circular 4' region are resolved over a mottled, scraggly glow. Several of the fainter stars were near my visual threshold, so popped in and out of view with the seeing. In any case, the cluster is impressively rich at 375x. A 20" pair of mag 11.5/13 stars is on the east side. A rich but faint curving chain of stars oriented ~N-S is on the west side (open to the west).

Notes by Steve Gottlieb