NGC 956 (Lund 80, Cr 27) Open Cluster in Andromeda
Located at: RA 02 hours 32 minutes 30 seconds, Dec +44 degrees 39 minutes 00 seconds
Size: 7.0' (9.0'); Magnitude: 8.9; Class: IV 2 m
North is up
West to the right
| Telescope: |
8" f5 Newtonian reflector |
| Camera: |
ST-8XME, self-guided, binned 1x1, temp -25c, camera control MaxIm DL 4.56 |
| Image: |
Lumicon Red filter, 220 minutes (22 x 10 minute subs), 12/18/2008; seeing 2.0-2.7 FWHM per CCDStack |
| Processing: |
CCDStack 1.4.1, Photoshop 7.0 |
| Location: |
Rolling Roof Observatory, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 (+34d 13m 29s -118h 52m 20s) |
| Notes: |
According to "Star Clusters", by Brent Archinal
and Steven Hynes, the size of this open cluster is 9.0 arc
minutes. From the NGC / IC Project: Contemporary Visual Observation(s) for NGC 956 NGC 0956 = Cr 27 = OCL-377 = Lund 80 02 32 31 +44 35.6 V = 8.9; Size 8 17.5": 15 stars mag 12-14 and two mag 9 stars in a 5'x2' group, very elongated N-S. The two mag 9 stars bracket the group at the N (mag 8.9 SAO 38098) and S ends. Not rich but stands out reasonably well at low power as the stars form a rough curving "S" asterism. Two additional mag 9/10 stars are 3' and 5' W of SAO 38098 but do not appear part of the cluster. - by Steve Gottlieb |