NGC2163

NGC 2163 is described as being a bipolar reflection nebula. It is associated with the pre-main sequence emission line star LkHA 208 at its center. Apparently, the star has an equatorial disk that creates the bipolar flows. The area around the star, especially to the west is filled with faint nebulosity though to the east is a north-south dark nebula. It seems to carry the designation of LDN 1574 and 1575 even though both have exactly the same coordinates in SIMBAD which put it (them) somewhat west of the dark band. The dark nebula TGC H1364 P2 however exactly matches the coordinates of the portion seen in in my image. I assume all are referring to the same object. I found nothing else of interest listed at SIMBAD, not even a distance estimate. The nebula is located in northern Orion less than 2 degrees south of the Monkey Head Nebula, NGC 2174. It is also listed as CED 62. It was discovered on February 6, 1874 by Édouard Stephan.

My version of The Sky 6 Pro, however, misplaces CED 62 to the east where nothing at all is to be found. Dummy used CED 62 as the go-to location and got a great image of colorful stars and nothing else. Since I used the name rather than coordinates I was puzzled by this until I put the coordinates The Sky had for it into the POSS server and came up with the same empty star field. I wasted rare good time this October and had to retry using NGC 2163 on a less than ideal night. Since I got something it will have to do for now.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2163

NGC2169

NGC 2169 is often called the 37 cluster. The part on the left is the three and the right the 7 though both are so distorted my brain has a hard time seeing the numbers. WEBDA put the group at a distance of about 3400 light-years and an age of 11.7 million years. They say it is only reddened by 0.2 magnitudes. The young age and lack of reddening explain its blue stars. The cluster is located in Orion's club. It may have been first noted by Giovanni Hodierna prior to 1654 but he published in a very obscure journal. The discovery that brought to the astronomy world's attention was by William Herschel on October 12, 1782.

Being big and bright it is in the original H400 program. As mentioned above I have never seen the numbers. My log entry from February 29, 1984 from light polluted Lincoln, Nebraska with my 10" f/5 at 95x reads: "Looks like two separate clusters. One a "V" shaped group and the other a linear one the "V" seems to point toward. Didn't look much like the drawing to me as more stars seen and brightesses seemed different."

Deep images of the cluster show the area filled with a faint blue reflection nebula. I took this one on a very poor night as something that would show through the gunk. This cost me nearly all the reflection nebula. Also, it cost me one of the green frames but for star fields one is sufficient. I can't find the nebulosity has a catalog entry.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RB=2x10' G=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2169

NGC2170

NGC 2170 is a mostly reflection nebula in Monoceros. It is the nebula at the upper right. To its left is the blue reflection nebula GN 06.05.7.02 and in the upper left corner is NGC 2182. All are part of the Monoceros R2 region of massive star formation. Dust and gas both reflecting light (blue) and emitting light from ionized hydrogen (red) are seen in the image along with dark nebula. These are regions where the dust and gas are too dense to emit light nor can starlight from stars behind it penetrate the dust and gas. This leaves what appears to be dark rifts in space. Nothing a giant super space vacuum cleaner couldn't deal with but the dust is so fine even the best HEPA filter would fail to hold in the particles so they'd come out of the vacuum as fast as it sucked them up if such a vacuum were possible. The cloud is thought to be about 2,400 to 2,700 light-years distant, twice the distance to the nearby Orion Nebula and its large star-forming region. In a few thousand years most of the dust and gas will have either been turned into stars or blown away by the high energies of its most massive stars and the shock waves of the deaths as supernova explosions. Then only an open star cluster will remain where we now see this huge tangle of dust and gas of many colors.

NGC 2170 was discovered by William Herschel on October 15, 1784 and is in the second H400 observing program. NGC 2182 was also discovered by William Herschel but over a year later on February 24, 1786. It too is in the second H400 program.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2170

NGC2174

NGC 2175 is better known as the "Monkey Head Nebula". While not as famous as the Orion Nebula it is nearly as large though not nearly as bright a nebula. NGC 2174 is the small bright knot of stars with a somewhat bluish nebula at the very bottom of my image. The nebula is just a bit too large to fit my imaging chip. Also on the right near the lower corner is a bluish object mostly out of frame. This is an open cluster illuminating a reflection nebula. It is sometimes known as NGC 2175S. Most amateurs take this object using Halpha light for the luminance layer and totally miss the reflection nebula involved with this object. My image is pure LRGB with no Halpha used so preserves the reflection nebula.

I'm using the designations that Seligman and the NGC Project use. SIMBAD uses both NGC numbers for the full nebula while APOD uses 2174 for the full nebula and never mentions 2175. Also, while most sources put it at 6400 or 6350 light-years distant SEDS says 850 light-years. The former would put it far beyond the Orion Nebula at about ~1300 light-years while the latter puts it much closer than the Orion Nebula. If the 6400 light-year distance is right my frame's height would be 42 light-years in size. So this is a very large nebula. Many sources put the visible portion of the Orion Nebula at 65 arc minutes which makes it only 25 light-years across. But it really is far larger and covers many degrees of our sky, most of which don't emit visible light.

The nebula has been known for centuries. Many think Giovanni Hodierna was the first to see it sometime before 1654. The next known "discovery" came 200 years later in 1857 by Christian Bruhns. A German astronomer whose only NGC discovery was this object unless Hodierna beat him to it. So how did Herschel miss it?

NGC 2174 was seen as a star knot in NGC 2175 by Édouard Stephan on February 6, 1877. I can't find anything on the discovery NGC 2175S.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2174

NGC2182

NGC 2182, 2183 and 2185 are reflection nebulae in southeastern Monoceros. The area around the latter two is chock full of Young Stellar Objects and Herbig-Haro objects often associated with YSOs. Some of these probably account for the H alpha emission near NGC 2183. Most sources seem to agree as to where these are located but oddly SIMBAD has a problem with the last two. I wasn't going to make an annotated image but the odd identifications in SIMBAD changed my mind. The standard positions are noted with the labels NGC Project after the NGC number as they go with the common locations. SIMBAD, however, puts the center of NGC 2185 in the middle of nowhere. Maybe they consider the entire complex NGC 2185, I don't know why else they'd do this. While most sources put NGC 2183 around the 9th magnitude star GSC 4795:829 SIMBAD says this nebula is [RK68] 53. NGC 2183 is to the east at the position of a small HII region. In fact, SIMBAD labels it as an HII region, not a reflection nebula. NGC 2185 is placed by most sources as the nebula around the stars east of NGC 2183 rather than where SIMBAD puts it. The portion of the reflection nebula around GSC 4795:509 is also known as GN 06.08.7. I think it quite likely all these reflection nebulae are caused by the same gas and dust cloud. We just see the reflection nebulae when there's a bright star behind them to illuminate them. The Sky shows the illuminating star for NGC 2182 to have a parallax of .0349" which puts it and therefore the nebula about 100 light-years away. Yet other sources say 2300 to 2700 light-years. Quite a discrepancy! The latter seems more reasonable given the angular size of the nebulae. So maybe some other star is illuminating NGC 2182 rather than the "obvious" one.

NGC 2182 was discovered by William Herschel on February 24, 1786 and is in the second Herschel 400 observing program. NGC 2183 was found by Bindon Stoney in 1850. NGC 2185 was discovered by William Herschel on October 16, 1784. It is in the first Herschel 400 program. My entry for it on March 16, 1985 is rather confused. I don't know what I was on but it was apparently "good stuff". I used my 10" f/5 at 60 power (that eyepiece was a 40 degree eyepiece so if I centered NGC 2185 then NGC 2182 wouldn't even be in the field). Here's my confused entry: "With NGC 2183 and 2184 (2184 is far out of the field - did I mean 2182?). Each appears as a faint, less than 12th magnitude star with even fainter reflection nebula around it. 2183 and 85 seem to be touching. An interesting and unique sight!" Did I think that the two parts of 2185 were 2183 and 2185 and the real 2183 was 2184? I need a time machine to find out what I saw.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2182

NGC2186

NGC 2186 is a type II2p open cluster in eastern Orion about half way between Betelgeuse and the Rosette Nebula. WEBDA says it is about 55 million years old, 4,700 light-years distant and reddened by only 0.27 magnitudes. This means its O and B stars have died though late B might create still exist as a red giant, maybe the one seen at the top of the cluster. Brilliant A and F stars make up most of the blue stars seen in this cluster.

It was discovered by William Herschel on January 27, 1786 and is included in the original Herschel 400 observing program. I'd have expected that to mean it was fairly well known. A search of several forums turned up a dozen or so references to it, mostly in observing lists. Though I found a couple folks reporting they found it by accident thinking they'd found something more famous and were bummed out to discover they'd been lost in space. My comments from the original Herschel program made on March 16, 1985 with my 10' f/5 on an average night at 120x reads: "Open cluster with 2 bright stars and a dozen fainter ones against a background of unresolved fuzz from stars dimmer than 14th magnitude. Many scattered outlying stars beyond the 5' diameter of the fuzz are seen. Are these cluster members?" A check of various sources give a size for it of 4' or 5' so apparently the answer to my question is no.

I took only one round of color as that is sufficient for imaging clusters. Also, no space junk passed through the color frames so I didn't need a second to remove space junk.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount

Related Designations for NGC2186

NGC2192

NGC 2192 is a rather tight but somewhat sparse open cluster in Auriga about 8,000 light-years distant with a Trumpler classification of III1p meaning it has no concentration of stars toward the center, the stars are evenly bright and it contains less than 50 stars. But it fit my field and is in the second Herschel 400 list of objects which my system is programmed to grab a frame or two on when nothing better is available (usually when waiting for something better to move into my imaging window. The luminance was taken one night and the color data taken over two other nights. I only managed one frame of each color but since there were no satellites I decided to end it last November. William Herschel found it on December 31, 1788. Apparently, he wasn't out boozing up New Year's Eve. Maybe that wasn't done in England in 1788.

The image contains two asteroids. Transparency wasn't good the night I got the luminance so they aren't as bright as normal for their magnitude and there's no color for them since that was taken on different nights.

I measure the diameter of the cluster at about 7.5 minutes but it's hard to tell where the cluster ends and field stars begin. Most catalogs give it a diameter of 5 minutes. If it is 5 minutes then the cluster is about 11.6 light-years across. If my 7.5 minutes is more correct then the diameter is 17.4 light-years. WEBDA gives an age for the cluster of just under 2 million years. That's not enough time for any blue stars to have evolved to red giants. Red dwarfs would be too faint so I assume the orange stars in the cluster are most likely not true members of the cluster. Most sources show it as virtually free of reddening from intervening dust.

There is obviously a lot of dust blocking distant galaxies from being seen. Only one is obvious and even that one is hard to see hiding behind a somewhat orange star just beyond the southwest edge of the cluster. NED doesn't show it at all as not even the 2MASS picked it up. It and the two asteroids are annotated in the cropped image which is at 1.5" per pixel. It is just noted as G? as I can't even verify it is a galaxy though I can't imagine it being anything else. I didn't note the cluster as that was rather obvious.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2192

NGC2194

NGC 2194 is an open cluster just east of Orion's club about 12,000 light years away. That makes it 35 to 46 light-years in diameter depending on whose size measurement you use. As open clusters go this one is rather old at about 325 million years of age. This likely accounts for the numerous red giant (actually orange) stars seen in the cluster. The cluster is lightly reddened by 0.38 magnitudes. That isn't enough to account for these red stars.

The cluster was found by William Herschel on February 11, 1784 and is included in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My notes on a rather poor night with my 10" f/5 on February 29, 1984 reads: "Loose and rather faint. Only a dozen or so stars seen against an unresolved background. City lights have pretty well drowned it out (population about 130,000)." Apparently, I never tried under dark skies. I assume it is much better than this indicates if seen under my current skies. Though I used up to 195X to try and dim the fog of city lights, it didn't work that night.

On the upper left edge, another cluster can be seen sneaking in. It is the obscure cluster [KPS2012] MWSC 0817. That's the only designation for it I found at SIMBAD. However, WEBDA has it under the name Luginbuhl-Skiff1. They say it is at a distance of 3150 pc (10,000 light-years) and has an age of 250 million years so a bit younger than 2194 and a bit closer. I assume the name refers to Christian Luginbuhl and Brian Skiff. Luginbuhl is at the Naval Observatory in Flagstaff while Skiff is at Lowell Observatory also in Flagstaff. I have to admit I didn't know of this cluster until I saw it in the image. Has anyone reported seeing it visually? According to WEBDA, there is no Luginbuhl-Skiff2. It appears it is a catalog of one object.

I imaged this field as part of my project to pick up Herschel 400 objects when nothing else is worth shooting -- in this case due to moonlight. It turned out I picked up something so obscure I'd never heard of it before. If I had I'd have framed it a bit differently.

Several dozen background galaxies can be seen in the image, all very small. None have any redshift data and in fact, have little data at all just being noted as to position and that's about all. Therefore I didn't create an annotated image.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2194

NGC2245

NGC 2245 (near center) and NGC 2247 are a pair of reflection nebulae in Monoceros not far from many more famous larger nebulae such as the emission Cone Nebula and mostly reflection Fox Fur nebula as well as some Barnard dark Nebulae. The distance to these seems rather vague. Most put it near the outer edge of the Orion Arm which would be about 3000 light-years. But, I always seem to run into "buts", NGC 2247 is also vdB 82 whose illuminating star is HD 259431 a B6 star that Hipparcos puts at 945 light-years. Then there's 2245. What's its illuminating star? Is it the very bright HD 46265 just to its northeast side? Probably not as it is a K0 star at nearly 6000 light years. More likely it is the variable star V699 Orionis at the north end of the brightest part of the nebula. It is an 11th magnitude B6 star. However, I have no distance estimate for it. Seen by the 2MASS survey it is the brightest of a small group of stars, the others being seen best in IR light hidden behind all the dust of NGC 2245 and likely having formed out of it. Some, however, are barely visible in my image.

NGC 2245 has some H alpha emission but it was too weak for me to pick up as my camera is not great for that frequency and conditions for this one were poor with red getting hurt the most. In fact, this one is a jinx for me. I got the luminance data nearly two years ago but clouds moved in ruining color data. Two more tries that season failed to get usable color frames, then 2013 was also a bust for the color data. Finally, at the very end of February, I got another chance for the color data but saving red to last it got hit by fog rolling in and is weak. After three years of trying I gave up and used what that February night gave me, not much.

NGC 2245 was discovered by William Herschel on January 16, 1784. It is in the second H400 observing program. NGC 2249 was discovered by his son John Herschel on December 23, 1834.

The reflection nebula vdB 79 in the upper right corner is apparently lit by HD 258973 an A2 star. I say apparently because the star is only 54 light-years away so not likely the illuminating source if this nebula is part of the same complex as NGC 2245 and 2247. Van den Berg listed his nebulae using the bright star nearest it without confirming if it really was the illumination source as best I can tell. So is vdB 79 a nearby object or part of the entire complex of which the two NGC objects are a small part? I don't know.

The annotated image has a question mark by an orange object above center. I couldn't find it anyplace. I have no idea what it is. It's located on the edge of the dark nebula DOBASHI 4723 and seems to have two rays to the southeast. I can't find any cataloged object within even one minute of arc of its position 6h 32m 61.6s +10° 17' 35".

As is often the case I seem to have found more questions than I answered with this one, especially as to how far these three objects are from us.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10' (poor especially red), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2245

NGC225

VdB 4 is a reflection nebula associated with the very young open star cluster NGC 225 which is often called the Sailboat Cluster. I've never seen that likeness, however. The nebula may be the remains of the cloud that formed the cluster. The WEBDA puts the distance to the cluster and thus nebula (if it is related) at about 2000 light-years. But this is quite uncertain. A very interesting paper on the probable PMS stars in the cluster illustrates the problems with determining the distance to such clusters. The paper estimates the cluster is between a half million and 10 million years old based on its study of the PMS stars. No PMS doesn't mean that. It means Pre Main Sequence. Indicating these are very young stars still not settled in to getting all their energy from turning hydrogen to helium which will power the star for most of its life. The birth process isn't quite complete yet you might say. For those who want the details the paper is at:
http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in/~basi/06December/200634315.pdf

The cluster was discovered by Caroline Herschel on September 27, 1783 as #11 on her list. A few months later she found it again recording it as #15 in 1784. The Sailboat name seems to be due to Rod Pommier in an article for Astronomy magazine. Even though Caroline is credited with its discovery it is in the original Hershel 400 observing program. William did record it over 5 years later on November 26, 1788. My comments from my H400 log on July 11, 1985 under good conditions at 60 power with my 10" f/5 read; "Large, sparse, scattered cluster of 20 bright stars and 15 or so much fainter ones. These may not be true members of the cluster but only field stars. With such a poor cluster it is hard to tell. How could the program ever call it rich? A good 2.4" telescope cluster but poorly suited to my 10." I never did notice vdB 4.

VdB 4 is centered on the variable star V594 Cas. The only designation I find at Simbad for the dark nebula going out of the top of my image is [LM99] 2. To me, vdB 4 looks like an alien standing with his curving arms to the left. They seem to surround a dark area. Simbad labels the brighter area just southeast of this dark region LDN 1302. I find this rather confusing. Simbad also indicates the bright nebula LBN 604 is near the top edge of my frame a bit left of center. Apparently, it refers to the general glow that fills most of the frame against which the dark nebulae are seen. I certainly don't see anything but this general glow in the area.

With only 40 minutes of data, the field is rather data starved. At the time I imaged this last fall (2010) I was imaging NGC 225 as one of the Herschel 400 objects, another project I have running. Consulting my visual log of the Herschel 400 I saw no mention of nebulosity nor had I heard of vdB4 until I later saw Tom Davis' wide angle view of the area showing a lot of dark and bright nebulae. By then it was too late and with nothing but clouds and poor seeing this fall I decided to go with what I had rather than try for more data. I was surprised how well vdB4 itself came through. Sometimes I get lucky.

When I went to process this I found that I'd hit a wrong key in setting up the imaging file and ended up with the red frame binned 2x2 rather than 3x3 as the green and blue images were binned. Thanks to normalization it didn't cause any problems. Just added a minor step in the processing.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' R=2x10' GB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC225