  We review the properties of the very young (2 Myr) open cluster NGC6383. The
cluster is dominated by the massive binary HD159176 (O7V + O7V). The distance
to NGC6383 is consistently found to be 1.3 +- 0.1 kpc and the average reddening
is determined to be E(B-V) = 0.32 +- 0.02. Several pre-main sequence candidates
have been identified using different criteria relying on the detection of
emission lines, infrared excesses, photometric variability and X-ray emission.
