15x50mm (9/6/10): bright but unresolved 15' glow.

15x50mm (7/26/06): moderately bright glow, at least 10' diameter. Observed using IS binoculars.

Caroline Herschel discovered NGC 7789 = H VI-30 = h2284 on 30 Oct 1783 (William had just started his sweeps two nights earlier) with her 4.2-inch reflector, noting "between Sigma and Rho Cass, a fine nebula, very strong." William resolved the cluster with his 6.2-inch reflector on 11 Mar 1784. On 18 Oct 1787 (sweep 769) he called it "a beautiful cluster of very compressed stars, very rich." That evening he swept with a binocular set-up, using two eyepieces. John Herschel called it "a most superb cluster, which fills the field and is full of star; gbM; but no condensation to a nucleus; st 11...18m."

200/250mm - 8" (11/8/80): extremely rich, uniform in faint stars. Certainly among the top open clusters with this aperture.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/12/85): a few hundred stars were resolved in a 20' field. Remarkably rich and fairly uniform carpet of stars mag 11 and fainter.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb