www.galaxies.se - by Ivar Hamberg

OBJECT: NGC2174 (Sh2-252, LBN854, IC2159)

This emission nebula in northern Orion is sometimes called the Monkey Head Nebula. It is associated with the open star cluster NGC2175. It has rather good emission in both S-II, Ha and O-III. It was discovered by Edouard Stephan on Feb 6 1877, the same year as he discovered what is now called Stephans quintet. (The designations 2174 and 2175 are sometimes used the other way around.)

In the center we see bluish hot gas. Young hot blue stars generate stellar winds and high energy radiation transforming regions of the surrounding gas into clumps and possible stellar creation.

I made exposures over 2 nights in S, H and O. The bright star in the middle is the O6-star HD42088 at magnitude 7.6.

Here I present the nebula in HOO and SHO representations. All image files are dark and flat field corrected. North is to the right.