It's also home to two household objects, the Dumbbell and the Coathangar. Best seen through binoculars or your finder, six stars of mag. 6-7 form a dead straight line, and out of the middle emerges the coathangar's hook. Distance is c.900 light years. Through the 18cm refractor with a half moon up, it is basically rectangular with the south half slight brighter and better defined.
Photographs show it to be hourglass-shaped.
I had an equally good view with my 4.5-inch Newtonian at 72x and no Moon. Although appearing dense enough to be a globular, this mag. 9 cluster is probably an open one. Diameter is 6 arcminutes, distance 18,000 light years. In the 4.5-inch Newtonian it's dim and mottled but not properly resolved and with no central condensation.