58 ASTRONOMY • JANUARY 2020
west-southwest of Menkib. Its location in
the dusty Per OB2 Association dims the
components by two magnitudes. A
remarkable star, the primary shines with
a luminosity 24,000 times that of the
Sun. The 5th-magnitude star has a 10th-
magnitude companion 26" to the west-
southwest (p.a. 243°).
Our next target, Atik (Burnham 535),
is a double star with an aggravating situ-
ation. The two stars (magnitudes 4 and
8.5) have a clean separation of 1.0", which
on paper looks like a challenge for a
5-inch scope. But users of an 8-inch
ref lector may have problems as well,
because the dim secondary is not only in
the glare of its primary, but also near the
position of the primary’s first diffraction
ring. How frustrating is that? I recom-
mend magnifications in the range of
300x or greater on the steadiest of nights
during deep astronomical twilight.
Don’t move the telescope, because
about 5' southward lies another compo-
nent of the Perseus OB2 Association:
7th-magnitude IC 348, a relatively small,
2-million-year-old cluster from which
Menkib likely originated. This greatly
overlooked cluster, which is visible
through binoculars, also illuminates a
conspicuous ref lection nebula popularly
known as Van den Bergh 19. (Though, in
fairness, when Truman Safford, first
director of Dearborn Observatory, dis-
covered IC 348 in 1866, he called it a
“loose cluster with nebula.”) The pres-
ence of numerous Herbig-Haro objects in
the region clearly signals that star forma-
tion in this part of the Perseus Molecular
Cloud remains ongoing.
The most active star-forming region
in the Perseus molecular cloud is
another overlooked visual wonder: the
simple yet beautiful ref lection nebula
and cluster NGC 1333. Located at the
western border of the complex, it hugs
the Taurus-Aries border some 3¼°
southwest of Atik. At magnitude 5.7,
this nebula spans only 10'. Eduard
Schönfeld discovered NGC 1333 in the
1850s with the 3.1-inch Fraunhofer
comet-seeker at Bonn Observatory in
Germany. It seems to show the face of a
shy specter masked in a white veil. A
magnitude 10.5 star illuminates thenebula and adorns it like the crown
jewel in a phantom diamond tiara.
Astrophotographers should take note:
In October 2014, amateur astronomers
Rainer Spaeni, Christian Rusch, and
Egon Eisenring — working as
“astroteam-CERES” from Switzerland
— discovered on images a small, fan-
shaped variable ref lection nebula in NGC
1333 that experiences prominentIC 348 is a reflection nebula and open
cluster, with the nebula itself also retaining
the catalog number Van den Bergh 19. The
bluish light comes from starlight reflecting
toward our line of sight. DON GOLDMANThe scattered open cluster NGC 1342 shows
a dozen bright stars along with a smattering
of fainter ones through any small telescope.
ANTHONY AYIOMAMITISThe strange reflection nebula NGC 1579,
sometimes called the Northern Trifid Nebula,
lies entombed in a dusty star-forming region
and appears as a glowing smudge of light
through backyard scopes. R. JAY GABANY