A potentially uncataloged reflection nebula around PR Orionis (Charles Bracken)

A potentially uncataloged reflection nebula around PR Orionis

I stumble upon uncataloged objects fairly regularly, but they are usually faint but distinct HII regions in areas of the sky where there is considerable nebulosity. This is not particularly surprising—our equipment is able to look far deeper than the equipment used when most catalogs were created, especially in narrowband channels. Plus, we’re looking at clouds, so boundaries are not always well defined.

I rarely see an uncataloged object that is as bright and obvious as the one I’d like to point out here, a 1’ wedge-shaped reflection nebula illuminated by the star PR Orionis. Searching SIMBAD, I can find no reflection nebula at this location. There is a Herbig-Haro object associated with PR Ori, HH305, and one of its components is visible here; it's a tiny red spot that you have to zoom in to see. It has been studied and imaged, but in SII and H-alpha, so any reflection nebula is not apparent in the published images. [See Reipurth, Devine, and Bally (1999), [url]https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/300513/pdf and Reipurth, et al (2018), https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aac020#ajaac020f5]

Interestingly, this object does not appear on the DSS2 plates, which were taken in the 1990’s. I’ve added a DSS2 image below with the exact same framing here for comparison. PR Orionis is a variable star that varies in magnitude by about 1.5 (per the Reipurth, et al paper noted above). It’s possible that it’s having an outburst at the moment, but a very unscientific comparison (“eyeballing it”) with stars around it in the green channel image seems to indicate that it is near its normal magnitude of 11.5. It is also a triple star system, so perhaps there is a dynamic similar to Hind’s Variable Nebula going on, where there is obscuring dust orbiting around the star. Or maybe the DSS images just aren’t that sensitive or processed well to reveal this object.

DSS2 comparison for NGC1999_HaRGB v2.jpg

I’d be happy if someone pointed out that it’s a known object with a proper designation that I’ve overlooked. Maybe there’s some IC object with erroneous coordinates or something?

There are lots of unnoticed objects in the sky. To that point, I note that in the same image, there is a bifurcated reflection nebula next to NGC1999 that doesn’t seem to have a catalog designation, at least not that I can find. This appears in many images of this area, but I figure that most people consider it part of NGC1999 (which only covers the bright ‘keyhole’ area).

Any help or corrections here are appreciated. Perhaps a small but bright object has been missed in the existing catalogs. It would be particularly interesting to understand if it is truly absent on images from the past.

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A potentially uncataloged reflection nebula around PR Orionis

A potentially uncataloged reflection nebula around PR Orionis

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A potentially uncataloged reflection nebula around PR Orionis

A potentially uncataloged reflection nebula around PR Orionis

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