 NGC
1624 is a different little open cluster embedded in a faint
nebula that is quite reminiscent of the well known Cocoon
nebula. The cluster itself is a tight grouping of only
a very few stars. The nebula is visible as a faint,
round haze. I wasn't able to find many observations of
this object; Walter Scott Houston makes no mention of it and
there is no description in Burnham's. Nevertheless I
found this to be an intriguing cluster because of the small
number of obvious stars and the that nebula is
relatively easy to detect (much more so than the Gamma Cas
nebula, for instance).
Even in my
18-inch the primary stars of this cluster can be counted on
the fingers of one hand. An equilateral triangle of
stars lie at the cluster and nebula center. Two other
bright stars lie to the west, pointing at the
triangle. Visually these 5 stars dominate the
view.
At 97x I was
able to make out the nebula as a very faint haze. The
OIII filter really brought it out, revealing a large, very
diffuse, irregularly shaped glow. The H-Beta helped,
but not as much as the OIII. Higher magnification
showed the cluster better, but the best view of the nebula
is at low power.
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