John Herschel discovered NGC 957 = h227 on 9 Dec 1831 and noted "a p rich, pL, cl; st 13...15; not compressed at the centre. Figure an irregular parallelogram."

200/250mm - 8" 30 stars in cluster, fairly large, moderately rich, elongated ~E-W, unresolved haze. A bright wide double star mag 8/10 at 23" is on the SE edge. Bracketed by fairly bright stars to the east and west. Located 1° NE of the Double Cluster.

400/500mm - 17.5" (10/25/97): moderately rich cluster, ~9'x4' in size and oriented ~E-W. Includes a mag 8 star (HD 15621) on the SW side and a mag 8/10 pair (h2143) on the SE end at 24" separation. About three dozen stars are fairly evenly distributed within this elongated cluster. There are few faint close double stars along the NE side and the bright double has a couple of much fainter companions. A mag 7.5 star is off the west side of the cluster but appears completely detached.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb