NGC 2349

Right Ascension	07 : 10.8 (h:m)
Declination	-08 : 36 (deg:m)
Distance	(kly)
Visual Brightness	(mag)
Apparent Dimension	(arc min)

Discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783.

On March 4, 1783, Caroline Herschel discovered "a very obscure nebula" in the neighborhood of the star 19 Monocerotis and added it to her list as No. 4. Her brother William thought that this was identical to a cluster he had seen on February 24, 1786 in the neighborhood of M50, which he had included in his catalog as H VII.27 (NGC 2349). This object, centered near RA 07:10.8, Dec -08:36 (2000.0), is easily identified by the "extending branch towards the south-preceding," although it is not exactly outstanding, and the present author [hf] is inconclusive on the physical nature of this object as a cluster. Michael Hoskin (2005), however, points out that there is a difference in the positions of more than 4 degrees between 19 Monocerotis and William Herschel's H VII.27, and concludes that "whatever Caroline had observed in that "discovery," it was not H VII.27 (NGC 2349)."

Moreover, this object was confused by John Herschel in the GC, where he logged the position of a close double star; this position found its way into the NGC. Consequently, the RNGC found it to be not a deepsky object and listed it as missing, a classification repeated in the NGC 2000.0. Harold Corwin finally cleared up the error in his NGC Bugs list.

NGC Online data for NGC 2349

References:

• Michael Hoskin, 2005. Caroline Herschel as Observer. Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 36, Part 4, No. 125, pp. 373-406 (November 2005).

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Hartmut Frommert
Christine Kronberg
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Last Modification: March 11, 2009