Quote fromDreyer's New General Catalog (NGC):
"Very faint, pretty large, irregularly round, stars nearby."
NGC 1924 is a fine barred spiral galaxy with an inner ring in the constellation of Orion not 2 degrees from the Great Orion Nebula, M-42. The fact that it is an Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) object indicates a lot of dust. A rough distance estimate for NGC 1924 is 133 Million Light Years, and at that distance its true diameter would be about 62,000 light years.
It is an easy object to see in Kopernik's 20 inch telescope. It appears as a round nearly featureless patch, with a slight brightening toward center,and just a hint of bar or spiral pattern.
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George Normandin, KAS
March 18th, 2000