Several star fields to the south of IC 2631 were strangely devoid of stars due to the huge molecular Chamaeleon Dark Cloud. Only a few brighter stars were visible in the 30' field at 200x (13mm Ethos). The center is roughly 40' S of IC 2631 and the dark cloud appears elongated 2:1, roughly 90'x45' N-S.

The Chamaeleon dark cloud complex is a complicated structure consisting of 3 large molecular clouds (designated Cha I, II, III by Hoffmeister 1963) and a number of smaller clumps and globules. The region I observed corresponds with Cha I and contains the reflection nebula Ced 110 = GN 11.04.8 and Ced 111 (surrrounding T Tauri stars HD 97048 = CU Cha and DI Cha).

DeLisle Stewart discovered IC 2631 = D.S. 352 on a plate taken on 22 May 1900 at Harvard's Arequipa Station. He noted "* 9 involved in neb of 2' radius."

600/800mm - 24" (4/11/08 - Magellan Observatory, Australia): surprisingly bright, very large reflection nebula surrounding the mag 9.0 pre-main-sequence star HD 97300 (Herbig Ae/Be dwarf). The nebula extended nearly 8' in diameter (fading out around the edges) and appeared essentially round. It was missed by John Herschel although he picked up NGC 3620, a faint galaxy 32' NE. IC 2631 is not plotted in Tirion's Sky Atlas 2000, Uranometria 2000 (both 1st and 2nd editions), nor the Millennium Star Atlas.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb