This is, as far as I know, the undocumented reflection nebula located in the constellation of Orion!
While fairly small, it is relatively bright for undocumented nebulosity. This nebula is located somewhat close to NGC 2174 (The Monkey Head Nebula), but just out of frame of most photographs that I could find.
I found this nebula on the Aladin DSS2 scanned plates, and tried to do as much digging as I could to see if it was mentioned in any literature, but was unsuccessful. I discussed it with my colleagues in the Deep Sky Hunters group, but we didn’t find any references. So, unless someone could contact me, I can conclude that this nebula is newly discovered.
You can find this nebula at this RA, DEC coordinates:
05 58 39, +20 11 11The morphology of this nebula, at least on the surface, looks very close to that of the VdB 2. At first, I thought they were the same nebula, but then I checked the coordinates and realized they were not.
Interestingly enough, there seems to be two more reflection nebulae below the bright one. These are hardly visible in the DSS2 data alone.
The image itself is a blend of the DSS2 data and the data I captured myself.
This nebula is #30 in the catalog of newly discovered reflection nebulae that I am assembling. You can find the link to the catalog table in my AstroBin Bio.
If you have any information about this nebula - please let me know
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