Looking at better, albeit imprecise metrics, a study in 1970 said that six of the brightest stars formed a cluster; the fainter four did not.

These recent studies are based on improved measurements of parallax and proper motion of the stars, taken by the Hipparcos satellite.

Under a dark sky, the coathanger can be seen with the naked eye as an unresolved patch of light; binoculars, zoom camera or a telescope at very low power are usually needed to view this asterism.

They diverge in distance; HD 182955 and that suffixed -620 are, quite considerably,[3] mutually the closest but certainly not gravitationally bound.

The faintest of the three bright stars, with resultant Flamsteed numbers, in this asterism is slightly dimmer than one without such a designation, and is joined by the six other stars in having a relatively similar Henry Draper catalog number, due to their position in the night sky and having sufficient apparent brightness (visible wavelength magnitude) to make the catalog.

Measurements put them initially at about 4,580 light years away[4] however the same authors have refined their view and state they are a further 4,420 light years away, in a report which invokes Early Gaia Data Release 3, and 6th "internal" Gaia-ESO survey measurements.