NGC 2467

 OPEN CLUSTER & STAR FORMING REGION IN PUPPIS (THE STERN DECK)

(Image centered at: ra 7 h:52 m / dec - 26º 23')

ANNOTATED IMAGE

March - 2024, Sarandí, Gualeguaychú, Entre Ríos, Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Star Forming Region

APPARENT DIAMETER: 16 arc minutes, FOV 1° x 44'

APPARENT MAGNITUDE (V): 7

DISTANCE: 13.000 light years

IMAGE INFORMATION

INSTRUMENT: 6" ORION OPTICS UK (Ultra Grade Optics) w/Sky Watcher Coma Corrector (0.9x) working at at f4.5

CAMERA: QHY 183 MONO

MOUNT: VIXEN GDPX, OAG with Starlight Xpress Lodestar

FILTERS: BAADER LRGB Set HA Astronomik 6mn

SKY CONDITIONS: rural skies - Bortle 4 - SQM 20.63

EXPOSURES: LHaRGB (45,60,45,45,45)

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

The image shows an area surrounding the stellar cluster NGC 2467, located in the southern constellation of Puppis ("The Stern"). With an age of a few million years old at most, it is a very active stellar nursery, where new stars are born continuously from large clouds of dust and gas. NGC 2467, however, does not represent a distinct open cluster, rather, it contains a superimposition of several stellar groups along the same approximate line of sight that have distinctly different distances and distinctly different radial velocities. The H II region of NGC 2467 has been the target of various investigations to elucidate the process of star formation. Unresolved questions include understanding the degree to which the stars already formed in such regions.

In the annotated image below we have labeled the following:

The star HD 64315 is a massive young star and it is believe is responsible for shaping the structure of the circled region NGC 2467. HD 64568  is a hot, extremely massive main sequence blue-white star that is the prototype of the O3 V spectral category. The bright star HD64455 is a foreground B8 IV sub giant. Its distance is somewhere between 1,300 and 4,000 light years. And, of course, the other brighter stars are foreground objects too including OR Puppis which at only 900 light years distance is an M7 variable star having a brightness range of 6.85 to 7.10.

SAO/NASA paper suggests that Haffner 18 and Haffner 19, lie at about the same distance of 22,500 light years so it would seem that both clusters are farther away than NGC 2467. Haffner 19 is a compact cluster containing a Strömgren sphere (a kind of Rosette nebula structure) which is ionized by a hot B0 V-type star. Haffner 18 contains a very young star, FM3060a, that has just come into existence and still surrounded by its birth cocoon of gas (WRAY 15-101. The age of Haffner 19 is estimated to be 2 Millions years old, while the age Haffner 18 is somewhat controversial, some considering it to be as young as only 1 Million years old. Both objects may be considered as a binary cluster.

NGC 2467 COMPLEX

 OPEN CLUSTER & STAR FORMING REGION IN PUPPIS (THE STERN DECK)

 ANNOTATED IMAGE