Mighty image Rick. I don't think I have seen more detail in NGC 2071 before.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
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NGC 2071 is a reflection nebula just north of the far more famous M78
some 1300 to 1600 light-years away in Orion.

The nebula houses many protoplanetary disks. One is the smallest known.
It is seen by radio not optical telescopes like mine.
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/1998/essdisk/
Information on other young stellar objects can be found at this paper:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...111.5469v1.pdf

While NGC 2071 appears to be part of the same molecular cloud as M78 I'm
finding most papers on NGC 2071 saying its distance is 1300 light-years
while M78 papers put it at 1600 light-years. It could be due to the
measurement to 2071 dating to 1982.

I wanted more data on this one but after two months of lousy skies in
this part of the sky I gave up. This year isn't looking any better for
this part of the sky.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10', RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick
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