NGC 2174 – Monkey Head Nebula (Richard Francis)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: IC 2159 · NGC 2174 · NGC 2175 · Sh2-252

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NGC 2174 – Monkey Head Nebula

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NGC 2174 – Monkey Head Nebula

This image represents an important milestone on the road to understanding how to use the Kepler KL4040 sCMOS camera. I have been troubled since the early summer with image artefacts which could not be calibrated out, despite the early success in the Spring. There were features in the darks which were quite different from the lights. Finally the penny dropped: when the cooler is struggling to maintain temperature (as it has been doing in the warmer temperature since last Spring) then the built-in anti-dew heaters are unevenly heating the imaging chip, and it’s worse for the darks because the internal shutter is closed, trapping and potentially reflecting the heat.

So, I collected darks and lights with the heater switched off, and this is the result. Although I had plenty of data for this object prior to my “eureka” moment, this is the result of single night’s session, until 4am.

The Monkey Head Nebula (so named because, with a bit of imagination, that’s what it resembles) is in the constellation Orion. It is designated NGC 2174 and is a cloud of gas surrounding a star cluster, known as NGC 2175. Like many such nebulae, new stars are being born here as the gas and dust in the nebula condenses. The gas cloud is predominantly ionised hydrogen, with the energy for ionisation coming from the ultra-violet radiation from the new stars. It is about 6,400 light-year away.

It covers an area of sky larger than the full Moon, and can just be seen with binoculars as a faint grey patch. Being faint, the nebula was not discovered until 1877, by the French astronomer Édouard Stephan (of Stephan’s Quintet fame).

UK Astro-Imaging
Astrophotographes (France)
Narrowband imaging

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3179993
PixInsight job	SUCIUV2I3SSQKFS7DF64JW4DH6Y3SZK1
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	06h09m39s.424
RA (top/left)	06h07m24s.695
RA (top/right)	06h11m55s.250
RA (bottom/right)	06h11m55s.216
RA (bottom/left)	06h07m22s.596

Dec (center)	+20°28′40″.63
Dec (top/left)	+19°56′41″.90
Dec (top/right)	+19°56′57″.84
Dec (bottom/right)	+21°00′33″.44
Dec (bottom/left)	+21°00′17″.72

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NGC 2174 – Monkey Head Nebula

NGC 2174 – Monkey Head Nebula

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NGC 2174 – Monkey Head Nebula

NGC 2174 – Monkey Head Nebula

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