NGC 2074

NGC 2074 is a magnitude ~8 emission nebula in the Tarantula Nebula located in the constellation Dorado. It was discovered on 3 August 1826 by James Dunlop and around 1835 by John Herschel. It is described as being "pretty bright, pretty large, much extended, [and having] 5 stars involved".[3]

NGC 2074
Emission nebula
Composite of separate exposures made by the WFPC2 on the Hubble Space Telescope.[1] Red shows emissions from sulphur atoms, green from glowing hydrogen, and blue from glowing oxygen.[2]
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Right ascension05h 39m 03.0s[3]
Declination−69° 29′ 54″[3]
Distance170,000 ly   (52,000 pc)
ConstellationDorado[1]
DesignationsGC 1272, JH 2942

Discovery

Some of the objects catalogued by Herschel before 1847 do not have a discovery date listed, and NGC 2074 is one of them. Though its inclusion in the catalog of objects observed in the Large Magellanic Cloud which involves observations carried out between 2 November 1836 and 26 March 1837 shows it must not have been discovered later than that.[3]

The observation of NGC 2074 by Dunlop was not identified as this object until recently.[3]

Location

NGC 2074 is located around 170,000 light-years (1.1×1010 AU) away. The area has a lot of raw stellar creation, possibly triggered by a nearby supernova explosion and is on the edge of a dark molecular cloud which is an incubator for the birth of new stars.[2]

References
  1. "Hubble Unveils Colorful and Turbulent Star-Birth Region on 100,000th Orbit Milestone". Hubblesite.org. 11 August 2008. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  2. "Hubble unveils image of NGC 2074". Astronomy.com. 11 August 2008. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  3. Seligman, Courtney. "Celestial Atlas: NGC Objects: NGC 2050 - 2099". CSeligman.com. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
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