NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 2306 is probably a rich portion of the Milky Way. Neither WH nor JH seemed mightily impressed with it. JH in particular thought it simply a concentration of stars rather than a true cluster. Examining the POSS1, I thought it might be identical to NGC 2309 which is 1.5 minutes of time to the east. However, JH saw both objects in the same three sweeps: his concurrent observations rule out an equality. The "object" I've chosen as N2306 appears on the POSS1 as an elongated cloud of stars, magnitudes 10-13, roughly 20 arcmin by 10 arcmin, with the long axis in position angle 70 deg. The position in the table is just an arcmin southwest of JH's position, adopted for GC and NGC.

===== NGC 2306 18" (1/26/09): at 175x, ~75 stars are resolved in an 18'x10' Milky Way group or cloud that streams WSW to ENE. The richest portion is on the west side just south of mag 8.6 HD 50734 (not part of the group). This subgroup includes a fairly close double star and a very small clump that resolves into at least 4 tightly packed stars. Appears to be an unimpressive Milky Way field, though the cloud is somewhat detached so is distinguishable. WH (VIII 51) noted this object as "a cluster of very scattered stars" and JH, who observed it three times (h416) described as an outlying portion of VIII 39 = NGC 2302 and "has no title to be called a cluster."