NGC 2074

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

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".

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.

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

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.

References

  1. 1 2 "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. 1 2 "Hubble unveils image of NGC 2074". Astronomy.com. 11 August 2008. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Seligman, Courtney. "Celestial Atlas: NGC Objects: NGC 2050 - 2099". CSeligman.com. Retrieved 14 January 2019.