I originally had planned to capture  IC 2169 focusing on the bright reflection nebula and surrounding dark nebula. As astrophotography goes, non forecasted clouds rolled in and I only had 2 horus worth of 3 min subs. I quick stacked the images and saw they were okay, but that in the upper right corner there was half large golden star cluster I had not seen in stelleaium. I did a little digging and found out it was Trumpler 5.  The next clear night, I centered by capture on NGC 2245 to capture both Trumpler 5 and another open Cluster NGC 2259.  The weather held out and I was pleased with the results. 

IC 2169 reflection nebula is located in Monoceros approximately 2500 light years occupying 20 x 25 arc seconds. This would correspond to 18 x1.5 light years for the bright reflection nebula. The RASA8 really brought out some of the non reflective dust object and a fair amount of detail compared to other images I had see of this object.  A significantly cropped version of the area can be seen here below and is quite amazing at full resolution. 

If rotated counter clockwise 90 degrees,  I find that IC 2169 really looks like a city toy city snow globe. 


NGC 2245 and IC 2167 appear to be smaller versions of M78  that I shot recently with  young bright  reflection nebula with dark dust lines obscuring. These are thought to be similar distance form earth and measure 4.5 light years by my basic calculations. Below and to the left there also appears to be a young stellar nurse forming new proto stars similar to the bottom half of NGC 1333 Embryo nebula. 

NGC 2247 is also a neat small reflection nebula below NCG 2245 without as much detail.

Trumpler 5 in the top right of the image, originally was discovered by Robert Trumpler (Swiss American Astronomer) in the 1930s. It  is a  quite large open cluster that is thought to be 125 million years old. It is estimated to be 7800 light years from earth and 1300 light years above the galactic plane.  The large nature provided more gravitational bounding of the original stars. I find this cluster interesting because  of the it golden hue pops out from the fairly dense star field.

I combined this image and my image of the Christmas Tree nebula complex from 2020 below in a 2 panel mosaic. 


"These Are A Few of My Favorite Things" 2 Panel Mosaic Christmas Tree and "Snow Globe " RASA8 OSC