I imaged this object way back in May 2009. At that time I found no amateur images of this object. In fact, catalogues listed the object as a galactic open cluster - and Hartung wrote that John Herschel had made a mistake in describing this object as " a decidedly nebulous group". Well Hartung was clearly wrong, and there is plenty of nebulosity here.
And in possibly an extreme case of pareidolia I saw a whirling dervish- and decided to name the object accordingly. Of course I posted my image - and floated the name here on IIS.
12 years later i revisited this target over the course of several nights in April, capturing 16 hours of data- and here is the result. Can you see the flowing twirling skirts? the raised arms? the turban ? I cant unsee this - and stand by the name!
I see this name being used by other amateur astronomers as well, so it does seem to have caught on- though some seem to have trouble seeing the whirling dervish. Come on surely it’s nowhere as bad as the Running Chicken is it ?
anyway its a really interesting area and not often imaged, though much more often these days than in 2009 especially here on IIS
Comments and suggestions welcome, thanks for looking.
( ED80/ 8 hours with Baader 7 nm H Alpha Filter and QQHY 183MM and 8 hours with ZWO ASI 183MC and Optolong LmExtreme)
Larger image
https://flic.kr/p/2kXajtZ
