NGC2022

NGC 2022 is a multi-shell planetary nebula just east of Orion's head. The Hubble Space Telescope page says it is 5000 light-years distant. I found no other distance estimate for it. I knew it had an inner oval that has some detail but poor seeing this night didn't let it show in my image. Most images show a rather faint outer halo that turned out rather bright cyan in my image. I'm not sure why as most show it more neutral in color. What I didn't expect was hints of a faint shell further out that is separated from the inner shells by a dark space. This is all right at the noise level of my image. Taken under my typical for this year, poor transparency, and with not enough frames it is pretty much lost in the noise. In fact, much of what I show may be noise but I'm quite sure there is something there. I see hints of it in several online images. Seems no one gives this one the time needed to bring it out.

There is a star embedded in the inner ring that even the Hubble image doesn't seem able to separate out. I could but then I lost the ring so gave up and left it as most show it, lost in the ring itself. The Hubble image is all over the net. The original is at: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9738c9/ . It is pseudo-color using just a V filter (green) and a near IR filter to supply color. I assume the green filter was assigned blue and the IR filter red with a green made from an average of the two. The image has south at the top rather than north as my image is oriented. The star is barely visible (mainly its diffraction spikes) in the upper left corner of the bright ring. Interestingly the ring has its own bright area almost exactly opposite the star. It appears the ring also has its own bright area right where the star is located making it hard to tell if real or not. I vote for a symmetry here and both "corners" being brighter than the rest of the ring. I've included a deep image I found of the nebula showing the faint outer halo in Ha and OIII light. I don't know the source.

It was discovered on December 28, 1785 by William Herschel. My log entry from the first H400 program made on February 29, 1984 on a hazy night in town with my 10" f/5 at 195x trying to cut through the light pollution reads; "Nice green circular blob. Mabe fainter in the center. No stars were seen at its center. UHC filter helped greatly to see detail in this one."

I found nothing else with distance data in the image and no asteroids showed up so no annotated image was prepared.

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

Related Designations for NGC2022

NGC2071

NGC 2071 is a reflection nebula just north of the far more famous M78 some 1300 to 1600 light-years away in Orion.

The nebula houses many protoplanetary disks. One is the smallest known. It is seen by radio not optical telescopes like mine.
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/1998/essdisk/
Information on other young stellar objects can be found in this paper:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1111/1111.5469v1.pdf

While NGC 2071 appears to be part of the same molecular cloud as M78 (poking its head in at the bottom of my image) I'm finding most papers on NGC 2071 saying its distance is 1300 light-years while M78 papers put it at 1600 light-years. It could be due to the measurement of 2071 dating to 1982.

The nebula was first recorded by William Herschel on January 1, 1786. It is in the second H400 observing program.

I wanted more data on this one but after two months of lousy skies in this part of the sky I gave up.

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

Related Designations for NGC2071

NGC2141

NGC 2071 is a reflection nebula just north of the far more famous M78 some 1300 to 1600 light-years away in Orion.

The nebula houses many protoplaNGC 2141 is a rather old open cluster in Orion's Club. It is listed as being 13,100 light-years away by WEBDA. That puts it well beyond the Orion Arm. I'd expect it to be greatly dimmed and reddened by the dust and gas in the Orion Arm but it is listed in WEBDA as being reddened by only a quarter of a magnitude. However, my image shows severely reddened stars and galaxies which surprised me. Many are redder than in any image I've done in the 8 years since going digital. It is listed as being 10 minutes across. At a distance of 13,100 light-years that would make it 38 light-years across. that's large for an open cluster but it is thought to be about 1.7 billion years old giving time for tidal forces to pull away stars which might help to make it larger before the stars are totally ripped away. Due to its age, its stars aren't all that blue with the brightest being dying red giant stars that were blue not long ago.

I like the older clusters for imaging because they do have a good mix of red stars beside the blue ones. Young clusters haven't had time for many, if any, stars to turn into red giants so aren't as colorful.

According to the NGC Project, this cluster was discovered by Edward Barnard of dark nebula fame. Without explanation, they list the "Year of Discovery" as "1882-7." They list no telescope for the discovery either. Another source, Cseligman, says it was found in January 1883. Probably the NGC Project is indicating it was found somewhere between 1882 and 1887 while Cseligman is saying a date within that range. Still, I'd like to know more about this uncertainty.

Conditions were poor when I took the luminance data. I gave up trying for color data. The following night was much better. Assuming the luminance from the previous night was good I just took the color data. In processing this one I found the luminance so poor I just used the color files to make a pseudo luminance image. So the same 6 color files were used twice, once for the color image and once to make a pseudo luminance image. This may help explain why the red stars and distant galaxies are so unusually red.

While I can see quite a few distant galaxies in the image most look like red stars until you examine their PSF (Point Spread Function) in the FITS files. That gives them away as being galaxies. Rather than try and check every red star to see if it was a distant reddened galaxy I just annotated those in NED. All are from the 2MASS galaxy listing. Oddly the faintest one was rather white in color with all the others being quite red. No distance or even magnitude data was available for any of them. With the field on the western edge of the winter Milky Way, it is surprising any galaxies were seen.

14" LX200R @ f/10, Pseudo L=6x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2141

NGC2146

NGC 2146 is a very strange galaxy in Camelopardalis. Its distance by redshift is 40 million light-years. This is often unreliable this close to us. Other methods at NED put it as close as 56 million light-years by the Tully-Fisher method and as far as 90 million light-years by the Sosies method. Splitting the difference gives 73 million light-years. The HST press release on this galaxy says 70 million light-years. A nice round value. How it was determined I don't know.

I've had this one on my to-do list from the beginning but until my Polaris trees were no more it was forever hidden behind them. The mystery is why this galaxy looks as it does. A merger would be the most reasonable idea. For the arms to still be so disturbed most think some remains of the other galaxy should exist but that doesn't seem to be the case. This leaves interaction but there's no obvious candidate for that. NGC 2146A in the upper left corner may be a neighbor but it is much smaller. It looks rather normal. Being smaller it would have taken the brunt of any interaction so is pretty well ruled out. No other galaxies seem to be candidates. I searched out 5 degrees in all directions and nothing with a significant mass turned up that could have done the deed. All were tiny by comparison and looked unharmed but for NGC 2336 which is a nice undistorted spiral. Even without a candidate, the HST page seems to go for the latter explanation. But until someone finds the interacting galaxy I'm favoring the idea it totally consumed the other galaxy tearing it to so many shreds nothing recognizable is left but some plumes. I'd think there'd be a compositional difference however between stars from each galaxy and they'd be still in streams so recognizable. Especially if one of the plumes is from the other galaxy. So far I didn't find any papers noting this. A point in favor of the interacting faction I admit. Sill where is it?

You can read more and see the HST image at: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1134a/ Note their image is false color. Still, it shows many of the HII regions I picked up without the use of an H alpha filter. They are an orange-brown color in the false color HST image rather than the pink color they are in my close to true color image. Only two other galaxies in the image had any redshift data as did one quasar. The pole region isn't covered by the Sloan survey so only brighter galaxies, mostly IR luminous are cataloged. What few of those were I've also noted by name in the annotated image but, of course, without any distance estimate. Several interesting looking galaxies didn't make any catalog NED carries and are noted with just a question mark. On the other hand, The Sky shows a galaxy PGC 142974 above NGC 2146 at 6h 18m 54s +78d 27' 8" at magnitude 18.6. There's absolutely nothing at that position. That's not all that far from one of the question mark galaxies but I can't corrupt its coordinates 6h 19m 51.7" +78d 27m 38" to match. Time to head for that booze cabinet again. This galaxy was discovered in 1876 by August Winnecke, a German Astronomer who found 8 new NGC objects and is co-discoverer of another 3.

Clouds hampered this image. I probably should have retaken it. Instead, I threw out 5 of 8 L image lost to clouds but kept the other three even though 2 were dimmed by clouds. Since I was taking 8 L I took 3 of each color instead of my normal 2. Good thing as clouds nailed them to some extent as well but I didn't throw any out. Instead, I combined all color and the three L images into a pseudo luminance image and used that. Still, color balance was pretty poor as the clouds did a number on all color channels. I hope I managed to get them about right.

14" LX200R @ f/10, Pseudo L=12x10', RGB=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2146

NGC2149

NGC 2149 is a somewhat unknown reflection nebula in the southwest corner of Monoceros. Just to its west is smaller, dimmer and less defined vdB 66 around a 10th magnitude star. Steven James O'Mera has this to say about NGC 2149 in his book "The Secret Deep".

Reflection nebula NGC 2149 itself appears to be a giant expanding ring between the high longitude end of the Orion A (molecular) Cloud and the Mon R2 Cloud. In most projections, these clouds appear to be unconnected. However, in a 2008 "Astronomy and Astrophysics" B. A. Wilson (University of Bristol), Thomas M. Dame (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and colleagues say that their three-dimensional display (with velocity as the third dimension) indicates that the clouds in this region may be connected to form a ring. If NGC 2149's distance is 1300 light-years, they note, the diameter of the ring is about 260 light-years, which corresponds to the expansion age of about 9 million years and may be the result of a supernova."

Note he is not talking about NGC 2149's apparent ring structure but that NGC 2149 may be part of this huge ring that happens to be illuminated by a massive blue star. The apparent ring structure of NGC 2149 is likely due to an illusion. That part of the nebula likely is dark as other parts of the nebula shadow it from our perspective. The parts beyond the "hole" would be further from the illuminating star and toward us so that part does get light from the star. Seeing a 3D object in 2D can easily create such illusions. I found nothing to support this, just that it seems likely to me.

Some sources say vdB 66 is NGC 2149 but Simbad says it is faint blue nebula around the star to the west of NGC 2149. Seligman agrees with Simbad. The nebula was discovered by Édouard Stephan on January 17, 1877.

It's obvious there are far fewer stars on the right side of the image than the left. There's a lot of obscuring matter in that part of the image. Simbad says part of it is TGU H1490 P34. I can't decipher Simbad's size information to determine if it is all of it or just part.

Conditions were very poor when I imaged this and much color data was severely compromised by clouds, especially the red. I need to redo this one from the top. For now, this will have to do.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=7x10' (lots of extinction from clouds) RGB=2x10'x3 (even worse cloud issues), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2149

NGC2158

NGC 2158 is a very old open star cluster right next to much closer and younger M35. Most put its age at a bit over 1 billion years and its distance at about 16,500 light-years. Most clusters like this are disrupted by tidal forces in our galaxy in only a few million years. It is rare for any to come close to lasting a billion years. Being old it is much redder than a typical open star cluster since all its really massive and bright blue stars have long since blown themselves up. Though a few lesser massive ones still live on for a short time as red giants. This is one of the richest open clusters known. So some are now wondering if it is not really the core of a globular star cluster that has made so many passes through our galaxy most of its stars have been stripped and only the core remains. This could explain a lot if true. Though its much younger age argues strongly against this. For that reason, I don't buy this idea. In any case, it sure is pretty. It is located right "beside" a more normal open cluster easily seen in binoculars at the foot of Gemini, M-35. But it is much much farther away than M-35. A photo of both is at:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021129.html

It was discovered by William Herschel on November 16, 1784. My log entry from the original H400 program made on February 28, 1984 from town on a hazy night at 195x to cut through haze and light pollution using my 10" f/5 scope reads; "Great even in town. Over 40 stars resolved against a haze of many other unresolved stars. The night is getting a bit better or maybe my familiarity with the object makes the difference! Still, it is much more star-packed when seen under a dark sky."

This is another early image in which I severely overprocessed the stars. Not having easy access to the original data I did what little I could to lessen the issues this created. Since the exposure time is too short even for me and had severe read noise issues it is one I need to retake though don't hold your breath as I have too many not taken at all on my to-do list.

14" LX100R @ f/10, L=6x5' RGB=3x5', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2158

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