Lying on the northern rim of the Bar, N119 = NGC 1910 is a beautiful and enigmatic spiral swirl of nebulosity that looks, in photographs, remarkably like a barred spiral galaxy. However, because only parts of its beautiful flowing arcs are visible to our telescopes it looks like a nebulous smoke-drift, fantastically wreathed by the wind. Superb!

Quite apart from its unique shape, the complex is dominated by the fabulous star S Doradus! It is the brightest star in the LMC (visual magnitude 8.6 to 11.7), and one of the brightest known stars (absolute magnitude -9). It is the prototype for the class of variable known as S Doradus stars (luminous blue variables). These stars are extremely massive (at least 60 solar masses) and luminous, using up their nuclear fuel so fast that their lifetimes can’t exceed a few million years before they explode as supernovae. They are among the rarest types of star known – and here we can see the prototype shining brilliantly in another galaxy!

And as if the LBV prototype isn’t enough, a second LBV – R85 – lies less than 2ʹ to S Dor’s SW. It’s the brightest star in an exceptionally pretty little triangle of stars studding the southwest arc of the strange spiral shape.

Harlow Shapley and Virginia Nail (1953) designated NGC 1910 as the centre of Constellation V, a 24′ x 24′ region containing numerous blue supergiants.

Like many of the complexes in the Cloud, N119 is fabulous at all magnifications, beginning at binocular level. It is visible in 10×50 binoculars as a small, bright condensation embedded within the glorious star-dust haze of the LMC’s bar. In the telescope at low magnification, N119 is superb. It is dominated by S Doradus, which is surely the most exquisite star in the LMC; a brilliantly bluey-white star that dominates the rich field with superb intensity. And it makes a wonderful starting point for exploring this complex – which is somewhat like peeling an onion in reverse… as you move outwards, more and more layers of complexity are revealed.

16″ at 228x: Without the filter, the stars in their various clusters appear mingled with the loveliest nebulous patch of disorderly shape and evenness. But oh my, the nebulosity responds tremendously to the UHC filter; it is just gorgeous, glowing with varying intensities, and showing three distinct areas that illustrate its distinctive shape we can see in images. The central section east of SL 360 is the brightest; a beautiful bright, elongated patch of uneven nebulosity with a lovely faint pearly aspect and studded with stars. To the east of this patch lies a gorgeous arc of fainter nebulosity that swoops in a SE to NW direction, uneven and patchy with one small but brighter streak on its southeastern edge (this was the only edge of the nebulosity that is clearly defined, all the other edges simply melted away into the sky) and the slightly brighter splotch of BSDL 1217 at its northern tip. To the west of SL 360 another arc swoops southwards, incorporating the triangle of stars, and just where it fades away lies the small cluster H88 266. This arc is brightest between SL 360 and the triangle of stars; a small but nice smudgy-looking patch of pale and translucent nebulosity.

16″ at 228x: LH 41 is a gorgeous sprawl of mixed mag stars, with 60 or more mag 11-15 stars sprinkled haphazardly over a backdrop of a brightish, large, delicate and uneven nebulous glow. The glow is studded with the bright little open clusters, and dominated by the brilliant glitter of S Doradus. There is a very intriguing starless lane running through the centre. Without a filter, it is impossible to distinguish between the glow of the nebula and that of the star cloud’s unresolved starlight.

16″ at 228x: This is a lovely, bright little knot, but the radiance of the exquisite star only allows me to resolve one other considerably less-brilliant mag 12 star, along with a very tiny and faint star that popped into view like a ghost image before disappearing back into the very faint background glow.

16″ at 228x: Lying north of the S Dor cluster, this cluster is, apart from gorgeous S Dor, the most obvious feature of the whole complex – a small but beautifully bright little knot with a hazy periphery. Two tiny but bright little stars resolved in the middle of the cluster, beautiful little bright beads of light wrapped in the glow of unresolved starlight. The outskirts of this small bright cluster have, with averted vision, a mistiness that almost appears stippled with points of light, but no stars were resolved. Buried in the cluster is R86, a compact cluster.

16″ at 228x: Lying SSW of the S Dor cluster, this is a fairly bright little cluster with two bright stars on its northwest edge, the rest of the cluster being a lovely little dollop of unresolved starlight.

16″ at 228x: This cluster lies to the SSE of H88 266 at the southern wispy end of the nebula and it appears as a very small and faint, round droplet of light, no resolved stars.

16″ at 228x: Lying at the northern end of the swirl of nebulosity that lies on the eastern side of the complex, this cluster appears as a small, faint and undefined splotch of stellar light set against the faint (no filter) nebulosity.