Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  NGC 1788
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NGC1788: a fox’s face? Sure, why not., Charles Bracken
NGC1788: a fox’s face? Sure, why not.
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Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC1788: a fox’s face? Sure, why not., Charles Bracken
NGC1788: a fox’s face? Sure, why not.
Powered byPixInsight

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Description

A lot of people confuse the Fox Face Nebula (NGC1788) with the Fox Fur Nebula, which is not too far away in the sky. I guess there is a fox-ish face looking in there, but it’s not clear who first coined the term. If anyone knows, please tell me.  The large, two-pronged molecular cloud is LDN923, and NGC1788 (a.k.a. vdB 52) is just an illuminated area of it. The LDN catalog also lists LDN1615 and 1616 as components of the larger LDN923. (This is one of the issues with using LDN and LBN designations–so many of the entries overlap.) This appears to be part of the same molecular cloud complex as the Witch’s Head Nebula, which is just to the north.I acquired these data in collaboration with Charles Pevsner using a remote scope hosted at DeepSkyChile. This is a very faint target, and while the dark skies helped, it could probably use even more integration time.

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NGC1788: a fox’s face? Sure, why not., Charles Bracken