Quote:
Originally Posted by ngcles
Hi Paul & All,
Very good report mate.
Good that you saw NGC 3199. It is a pertty rare sort of nebula which is akin to NGC 2359 (Thor's Helmet) Canis Major, and the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) in Cassiopeia and NGC 6888 (Crescent Nebula) in Cygnus that is formed by a Wolf-Rayet or similar type of exotic star.
I think it is probably the brightest of its type in the sky but sadly sits in the shadow of the mighty Eta Carinae complex and doesn't get the attention it deserves. The illuminating star is mag 10.6 HD 89358 with a spectral type WN5.
There is a paper about it here:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1989A&A...226..270D
NGC 6164-65 in Norma is also more distant kindred, but not formed by a W-R star instead by an evolving high-mass O7-f star. There are only a handful of this sort of visible in the whole sky.
Best,
Les D
Contributing Editor
AS&T |
Les,
I have met you...at South Pacific Star Party 2004. I enjoy your contributions to the S&T, both the Australian one and the US version.
6164 is another favourite of mine.
I have logged over 2900 observations since 01/12/1999. All recorded in Skymap Pro v11 & Astroplanner v1.6. Those log files are now invaluable to me. I have copies all over the place, for safe keeping.
All the best.