NGC/IC Project Restoration Effort

===== NGC 3114. JH gives three positions for this large cluster; I've included two in the table. The other is probably a repeat of the second with a 20 second of time error in the RA. JH's first position refers to "... the centre of a bright equilateral triangle". This is easy to identify, and JH's position is good. A second position (10 02 40, -60 10.7 for J2000) for "The chief * 9 m ..." points at only faint stars. As I said above, I think that it is 20 seconds in error and actually refers to the same star as his third position for "The chief * 8 m ...". JH had a different suggestion that he added when he was later preparing CGH for publication: "As both this and the last observation are distinctly written and correctly reduced, no doubt they belong to two distinct and nearly equal stars on the same parallel." As we've seen, though, there is only one bright star, HD 87436 that he probably picked up both times. The position, and indeed the composition, of the cluster is uncertain. I make it over half a degree in diameter, and centered more than 30 seconds of time west of either Brian Skiff's estimate or ESO's position. The cluster is more or less outlined -- as I see it in a 1 degree DSS image -- by a group of 6-8 stars that closely resemble the "home plate" of bright stars in the constellation Auriga. I'm sure that a study of the area has been done, and I would guess that there is indeed a real cluster here. But to my eye, it looks scattered and a bit "diluted" by the rich Milky Way background.

===== NGC 3114 18" (7/8/02 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): this very bright naked-eye cluster measures some 35'-40' in diameter and is framed beautifully in a 50' field with the 27mm Panoptic. The cluster contains a couple of long curving chains of brighter stars, one forming a huge "U" shaped arc. There are several pretty smaller groupings and star chains including a striking equilateral triangle of nearly equal mag stars just north of center, consisting of mag 9.2/9.4/10 stars at 20"/22"/27". Two mag 6-7 stars (brightest mag 6.2 HD 87436) are involved and in addition there are numerous 8-9th magnitude stars scattered across the face of the cluster. Appears similar to a bright star cloud in Sagittarius or Cygnus and the cluster is just inferior to NGC 3532. Located 5¡ west of Eta Carina on the opposite side of Eta from NGC 3532. This is a young cluster (160 million years old) projected onto the Carina complex and the cluster is heavily contaminated by field stars at varying distances.