NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 2542 = 19 Puppis = SAO 153942 = ADS 6647. JH may have been misled by the faint companion to the brighter star. With a separation of only 2 arcsec, and a magnitude difference of 6.5, it would be very difficult to make out the fainter star except under extraordinarily fine conditions. Reading what I wrote "several" years ago in March 2014, I'm struck by its irrelavance with what JH had to say about the star: "A fine nebulous star 6' m, in the following part of the cluster [NGC 2539], and almost unconnected with it. The nebula is faint, but I feel confident that it is not the nebulous haze. (Notandum. -- Nothing more difficult than to prove a nebulous star of the 6th m and above.)" While this might be a description of a very close double star, it just doesn't read like it. Yet, the conclusion is still the same -- there is no obvious nebulosity around the star on any of the optical sky surveys. So what did JH see? We can only take him at his word, and accept the suggestion of faint nebulosity here that is overwhelmed by the light of the star on photographs. But we still need to prove that the nebulosity is indeed there.