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Re: (IAAC) King clusters



Brent A. Archinal wrote:

> > On this particular night I observed the "Three Kings", three open clusters that
> > are discussed on page 80 of the December 1998 Astronomy.  Appropriate viewing
> > for this season (even though Christ was probably born in the spring and the wise
> > men numbered more than three and were not kings but astrologers), the King
> > clusters were discovered by Ivan King through the POSS.  King 17 is located in
>
> Dave (and others) -
>
> I was just looking over some recent postings to "netastrocatalog", and I
> noticed your posting of December 29 regarding an observation of King 12
> (partially excerpted above).
>
> I just wanted to clarify that the first 21 King clusters were NOT
> discovered using the POSS, but were instead discovered by King AND
> OTHERS, using plates from the (Harvard) 16-inch Metcalf refractor.
> These clusters were reported in a paper "Some New Galactic Clusters", by
> Ivan King, which appeared in Harvard College Observatory Bulletin 919
> (pp. 41-42), of February, 1949 (note that this is before the POSS had
> even been done).  King notes that objects 2, 3, and 5 were discovered by
> Rebecca B. Jones, and object 6 was found by Carl K. Seyfert (of Seyfert
> galaxy fame).
>
> King 22 _was_ identified on the POSS, and was reported in a paper by
> King entitled "A New Galactic Cluster,", that appeared in PASP, v. 73,
> pp. 163-164, April, 1961.  However, this cluster had been discovered the
> previous year by Setteducati and Weaver as Berkeley 18, so the latter
> name is the preferred one.
>
> King 23 to 27 were reported by King in a paper "Five New Open Clusters,"
> PASP, v. 78, pp. 81-82, February, 1966.  However, King 23 had already
> been discovered as Czernik 28, King 24 as Czernik 32, and King 27 as
> Czernik 40, so the Czernik names are prefered for those three objects.
>
> Regards,
> - Brent

Brent,

I'm curious why the fact that the first 21 King clusters were not discovered via the
POSS wasn't specified in the text of the Observer's Challenge in the December 1998
Astronomy Sky Show.  To quote "However, the Herschels overlooked a couple of bright
clusters that fell into the sights of Ivan King as he scanned the Palomar Observatory
Sky Survey."  In the next paragraph King 14 is discussed.  Misleading, no?

Dave Mitsky
ASH, DVAA

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