M 35 and a Mystery

M 35 presents a gorgeous field of stars and must rank as one of the most beautiful open clusters in the heavens. Typically you see gentle curves and woven strands of frosted silver stars terminating with a larger, brighter and more colourful one at the curve’s end.

Sketch of M 35

It comes as little surprise, then, that observers have likened its pattern to an exploding rocket or bursting firework consisting of several hundred stars scattered over an area covered by the full Moon.

For us, M 35 or NGC 2168 lies at the base of the constellation of Gemini and probably itself in the plane of the Milky Way some 2,800 light years away and 24 light years in breadth and if it were not for swarths of interstellar dust lying in the line sight it would truely be a naked eye object.

Location of M 35

Although bound together by its own gravity, the relatively young cluster of about 100 million years old is gradually breaking up as a result of random encounters among stars that speed its members to escape velocity. Most of the stars we do find here are more massive than the sun itself and burning at extremely high temperatures, which makes them blue-white in color. The red stars in the cluster are nearing the ends of their lives and have swelled into red giants.

In the 4” telescope, I could easily make out about 40 to 50 stars, bright blue, silver and white blazing in the field of view, along with a few red giants evolving off the main sequence. Somewhat more to the south-west from M35, I came across what seemed like another open cluster. It contained fewer stars and was a lot looser than M 35 but it curved with a similar grace and appeared to contain a number of very hot young OB stars. I’m not sure if this area was still part of M 35, or perhaps the open cluster IC 2157.

The Mystery Cluster

Whatever the star field was both presented an archingly beautiful sight and one worth seeking out time and time again.

The sketches were made using a Tal 100rs, 25mm X-Cel LX, a black pen for the brightest stars and a 4B and 2B for the lesser magnitude stars plotted on white paper.