NGC 869 (Lund 73, Cr 24) Open Cluster* in Perseus
Located at: RA 02 hours 19 minutes 04 seconds, Dec +57 degrees 08 minutes 06 seconds
Size: 29' (18'); Magnitude: 5.3; Class: I 3 r
North is up
West to the right
| Telescope: |
8" f5 Newtonian reflector |
| Camera: |
ST-8XME, self-guided, binned 1x1, temp -15c, camera control MaxIm DL 4.56 |
| Image: |
Lumicon Red filter, 610 minutes (61 x 10 minute subs), 10/31 & 11/1/2/2011; seeing 2.8-5.8 FWHM per CCDStack |
| Processing: |
CCDStack 2.50.4324.19668, Photoshop CS 5.1 |
| Location: |
Rolling Roof Observatory, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 (+34d 13m 29s -118h 52m 20s) |
| Notes:* | This is the Western half of the the "Double Cluster". This image of
the "Double Cluster" is centered between the
two clusters. According to "Star Clusters", by Brent Archinal and Steven Hynes, the size of this open cluster is 18 arc minutes. From the NGC / IC Project: Contemporary Visual Observation(s)NGC 0869 = h Per = Cr 24 = Double Cluster 02 19 04 +57 08.1 V = 3.5; Size 30 17.5": this is the brighter and richer western member of the famous "double cluster". Includes a mag 6.6 star near the center and a mag 6.7 star 2.5' NNE. Close following the mag 6.6 star is a neat parabolic group of five stars opening towards the star. On the W side of this star is a rich group of ~20 stars mostly arranged in an incomplete ring. A faint curving string of stars from the mag 6.7 star leads to the parabolic quintet. The 20' field at 220x has too many stars to count, but probably has ~200 stars. 8": this is the western component of the "double cluster". Very bright, large, about 30' diameter. Very rich with about 100 stars resolved, includes several bright mag 6.5-7.0 stars in the center. Forms a pair with N884 at edge of 100x field. - by Steve Gottlieb |