LH 121

Big, gorgeous and full of stars, as a star cloud should be

Image credit Robert Gendler

RA: 05h 52m 15s Dec: -68° 13′ 40″

Diameter: 14′ x 3′

OB Associations: LH 121

Henize: –

NGC Objects: –

Bright stars, fainter stars, very faint stars, tons of glowing unresolved stars… lots of stars to look at!

16″ at 228x: This lovely star cloud is long and narrow, 12ʹ x 3ʹ, elongated N-S. There’s a lovely pair of stars at the southern end, mag 10.7 HD 270266 to the south with a mag 11.3 star a mere 30″ N. The small cluster BMG 132 lies to their west – it appears as a very small, very faint smudge of pale light. The cluster HS 440 lies to their north-northeast, and it appears as a very small, very faint droplet of light in an arc of stellar light open to the southwest. An attractive triangle of bright stars lies towards the north end of the star cloud, and HS 437 lies south of the southwestern star. It appears as a small, thin, very faint and diffuse glow, oriented SSW-NNE. No stars resolved. The cluster on the image to the right of the trio of stars is SL 752; it lies just outside the boundary of the star cloud.