In February 2023, when re-processing
my data of the cave nebula and the area surrounding it, I noticed something new when I removed the stars, a small splotch of blue around the variable Herbig Be star
V374 Cep:
After extensive research, I came to the conclusion that this is an unknown and uncatalogued reflection nebula. The
Spitzer space telescope has photographed this star in infrared and found interesting structure indicating a large circumstellar disk of dust (see Rev. B), but I couldn't find any images in the visible spectrum (outside of sky surveys) so decided to take my own. I first tried from home in New Hampshire with my Askar 130PHQ Refractor, but with my skies I couldn't resolve the level of detail I wanted, so I rented the
SPA-2 system in SE Spain operated by Telescope Live for 3 hours of imaging time to get this image. Since it's only 3 hours integration at f/8 on a dim object, the resulting image is noisy, but I'm happy with the level of detail that system was able to resolve on the object. In the presented orientation (South is up), I see the profile of a hummingbird in flight (see Rev. C if you have trouble seeing it). This is a small and very dim reflection nebula so I don't expect it will become a favorite for most folks to photograph, but if you are after a new challenge, it may tickle your fancy. I am working on a YouTube video about this discovery and the process of finding unknown objects in the night sky. Should be up pretty soon.
There does not seem to be any
ongoing effort to catalog reflection nebulae specifically. The last good reference I could find was
Merged Catalogue of Reflection Nebulae by T. Yu. Magakian (2002)
PDF LINK and
VIZIER LINK. So unless someone corrects me, I will just declare this object officially as '
Carver 1' and unofficially as '
The Hummingbird Nebula'. To find it, you can just plug in 'V374 Cep' if using SIMBAD / Aladin, or use these equatorial coordinates (J2000) in your program of choice:
~Nico
ADDENDUM Here is a list of all the identifiers on SIMBAD for the star V374 Cep, just in case someone is searching for this nebula and uses a different name for the star, this page should still come up:
TYC 4282-668-1 | GEN# +9.00020071 | SV* SVS 2870 | [KW97] 67-17 | ALS 12769 | GSC 04282-00668 | TIC 434972921 | [MO2001] 58 | Ass Cep OB 3-71 | HBHA 6207-39 | UBV M 51913 | Gaia DR2 2207340064583721344 | BHJ 71 | IRAS 23030+6158 | UBV M 50998 | Gaia DR3 2207340064583721344 | CSI+61-23031 | IRCO 995 | UCAC3 305-154189 | Gaia DR1 2207340064583721344 | EM* AS 505 | LS III +61 19 | V* V374 Cep | EM* CDS 5201 | 2MASS J23050746+6215362 | [B55b] 1015 | FMC 56 | MHA 217-18 | [JE82] 1144
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