NGC 6885 [6882]* (Lund 933, Cr 417 / Cr 416) Open Cluster in Vulpecula

Located at: RA 20 hours 12 minutes 00 seconds, Dec +26 degrees 29 minutes 00 seconds

Size: 18' (20'); Magnitude: 8.1; Class: III 2 m

North is up

West to the right

Telescope:

 8" f5 Newtonian reflector
Camera:

 ST-8XME, self-guided, binned 1x1, temp -20c, camera control MaxIm DL 4.56
Image:

Red (Hoya 25A) filter, 120 minutes (12 x 10 minute subs), 10/11/2006
Processing:

CCDStack 1.1, Photoshop 7.0
Location:

 Rolling Roof Observatory, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 (+34d 13m 29s -118h 52m 20s)
Notes:* NGC 6885 seems to be equal to NGC 6882 ...

According to "Star Clusters", by Brent Archinal and Steven Hynes, William Herschel discovered these on successive nights, but there is confusion about their identities. The bright star is 20 Vulpeculae, and has a large scattered group around it. There is also a smaller scattering of fainter stars NW of 20 Vul that *may* have been NGC 6882. The size of this open cluster is 20 arc minutes.

From the NGC / IC Project:

Contemporary Visual Observation(s) for NGC 6885
NGC 6882 = Cr 416 = OCL-133 = N6885:
20 11 58 +26 29.0
Size 18

17.5" (9/7/91): conspicuous subgroup at the NW corner of N6885.  About 15 stars 
in a tight 2' knot with three close brighter stars on the W side, over 
unresolved haze.  Sprays of stars forming the outline of N6885 seem to radiate 
from this group.  N6682 and N6885 appear as one cluster at low power.  It's very 
possible that N6882 = H VIII 22 is a duplicate observation of N6885 and does not 
refer to a distinct object.  See Corwin's discussion in NGCBUGS.

- by Steve Gottlieb

=================================================================
NGC 6885 = Cr 417 = Lund 933 = OCL-132 = N6882
20 11 58 +26 29.0
V = 8.1;  Size 18

17.5": about 80 stars mag 6-13 in 15' triangular group, bright.  Includes the 
bright star 20 Vulpeculae (V = 5.9) surrounded by seven very faint stars in the 
SE corner of the cluster.  Weak in the center of the triangle except for about 
10 other stars.  A wide bright pair is at the E vertex and a wide unequal double 
star is at the SW side.  Most stars are located along the west side particularly 
at the NW corner (this subgroup is catalogued as N6882, although it may refer to 
the entire scattered group).

8": about 50 stars at 100x, triangular-shaped, large, scattered, includes 20 
Vulpeculae (V = 5.9).  N6882 is superimposed 5' N.

- by Steve Gottlieb