Andrew Cooper
Sep 28, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 76x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 7 Moon: 0%

A knot of rich winter galactic starfield, a handful of 9th magnitude stars along the western margin with a rich clump of 11th magnitude and fainter stars in a 10' area, rich, resolved, 24' northeast of NGC 1807 and 30' north of HR 1684

Andrew Cooper
Oct 24, 2003    Farnsworth Ranch, Pima Co., AZ (map)
46cm f/4.5 Deep Violet

Large, dim, a circular cluster, in the margins of the winter Milky Way, brighter along the west side with a number of brighter stars outlining the west edge, many hundreds of dim members resolved but still giving the impression of a hazy patch

Captain William Henry Smyth
Sep 24, 1837    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

[From the entry for the double star CLXXXIV 4 ♅. VII Tauri] A very delicate double star preceding a tolerably condensed cluster, over the right arm of Orion. A 8, yellow; B 11, bluish. This object is an outlier of a rich gathering of small stars [NGC 1817], which more than fills the field; it was registered by ♅. in February, 1784, under an estimation of 20' or 25' of diameter, but he did not notice the pair here measured. However, Sir John Herschel thus describes it, No. 349: "Large rich cluster; stars 12 to 15 m.; fills field. Place that of a D *. The most compressed part is 42s.5 foll, the D *, and 3' south of it."

The whole may be fished up by carrying a line from the foremost star in Orion's belt, Mintaka, through Bellatrix, and there intersecting it by another from Aldebaran, due east towards γ Geminorum.

― A Cycle of Celestial Objects Vol II, The Bedford Catalogue, William Henry Smyth, 1844

Drawings, descriptions, and CCD photos are copyright Andrew Cooper unless otherwise noted, no usage without permission.

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