Telescope:

 8" f5 Newtonian reflector

Camera:

  ST-8XME, unguided, binned 1x1, temp -25c, camera control CCDOps 5.4

Image:

Red (Hoya 25A) filter, 76.25 minutes (61 x 75 seconds, Track & Accumulate), 04/6/2006

Processing:

CCDOps 5.4, CCDSharp, MaxIm DL 4.5, Photoshop 7.0

Location:

 Rolling Roof Observatory, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 (+34d 13m 29s -118h 52m 20s)

Notes:

Contemporary Visual Observation(s) for NGC 2323

NGC 2323 = M50 = Cr 124
07 02 48 -08 22.6
V = 5.9;  Size 16

13.1": ~75 stars including some brighter stars at the S and NE borders.  There 
are a few dense spots and many stragglers.  A red mag 8 star is at the S edge 
and a nice mag 9/11 double is 1' NW.  There is an elongated region void of stars 
just N of the mag 8 star.

- by Steve Gottlieb

NGC 2323 (Messier 50) has an apparent core-halo structure on the sky survey 
prints/films and DSS.  The overall diameter is roughly 30 arcmin by 25 arcmin, 
with the core being just 10.5 by 8.0 arcmin.  Most previous catalogues put the 
diameter at about 15 arcmin, but I have no idea now whether that is just an
eyeball estimate, or is based on photometric and proper motion studies.  The
diameters I measured are obviously just estimates.

I also put the position slightly southeast of Brian Skiff's or the one from
him adopted by Brent Archinal and Steve Hynes in "Star Clusters".  The core-
halo structure is well-shown in the DSS image reproduced in "Star Clusters" as
Figure 4.70. - Dr. Harold G. Corwin, Jr.