A cluster of clusters in Taurus

[petevasey]

6th magnitude open cluster NGC 1746 in Taurus contains two other classified open clusters, NGCs 1750 and 1758, but it would appear that 1746 is the dominant. Quite large at about 50 arc-minutes. I could have gone for a close up, and may yet, but there is a fainter open cluster nearby, NGC 1802, this is to the far centre left of the image, so to get both in the frame I used my 420 mm focal length TSquad refractor. As can be seen, both the clusters are quite loose. Data obtained over two nights, 11th and 13th March. The target was well towards the West limiting my imaging time and passing clouds didn't help - I would have preferred to image it sooner in the year, but the weather did not play fair! QSI683 with SXAO. Luminance 10 x 5 minutes, RGB each 7 x 5 minutes, all unbinned

There is a larger image on my web site here

Cheers,

Peter

[Waddensky]

Ah, the interesting case of NGC 1746. What a wonderful image, you don't see that many photographs of this part of the sky. I love the star colours!

Edited March 14, 2021 by Waddensky

[PNJ]

wow lovely, i also love the colours very well done

 

[petevasey]

Thanks, guys,

This field of view is approximately 2 1/2 degrees x 1 degree 50 minutes.   Just over 4 1/2 square degrees.  The total sky area for both hemispheres is 41,253 square degrees.  So this image, although we call it 'wide field' is less than  1/9000 of the total sky.  I don't suppose anyone wants to count the stars in my image then multiply by 9000  😉  Anyway I've only got down to around 16th magnitude.  The point being that although we are told there are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, it's only when I see an image like this that it really hits home.  Scary and very humbling!  Puts Carl Sagan's 'Pale blue dot' even more into perspective.

Cheers,

Peter

[MartinB]

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Lovely.  Beautifully processed stars