In October 2023, I set out to
photograph vdB 1. There are almost no wide field (990mm) images of vdB1 due to the fact that the star Caph is extremely bright. Most imagers focus on vdB1 itself. When processing this photograph, I noticed a bright reflection nebula towards the upper right-center of the image.
This object sits at coordinates
0:04:54.6 +58:33:20. It's situated next to the star
HD 225257, and is likely illuminated by it.
The reflection nebula does show up in some survey data, but is very dim. Thanks to modern processing tools and techniques, I was able to make the nebula really stand out. I think due to the nature of how others photographed vdB1 and how faint the reflection nebula is, it's gone unnoticed until now.
Following the lead of others who have stumbled across new uncatalogued objects. I researched all known objects near HD 225257 and came up empty. Not satisfied with my findings, I deferred to other experts like
Marcel Drechsler, who also confirmed no other known cataloged objects with reference to these coordinates or the star HD 225257.
For now, I would officially like to dub the object '
Burwell 1', affectionately known as
"The Blue Ghost" nebula, since it's remained elusive until now.
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