Jump to content

SkySurveyBanner.jpg.21855908fce40597655603b6c9af720d.jpg

NGC 7789, ‘Carolines’ Rose’, or the ‘White Rose’ cluster.


RobH

Recommended Posts

What a lovely romantic name this cluster has. The right sort of name for such a beautiful cluster, and a marvellous memorial to Caroline Herschel, sister of William and aunt to John, and the discoverer of this cluster in 1783. Not only did she come to England from Germany when she was 22 to be housekeeper for William, and vocalist for him when engaged as an organist, but she became his assistant and was a top rate astronomer in her own right, although often overshadowed by the fame of William and John, and responsible for many entries in the Herschel catalogue.

In recognition of her services to astronomy, she received the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1828 and was made a Fellow of the RAS in 1835, the first woman to be made a member.

She never married, and died in 1848, at the ripe old age of 98.

Her epitaph reads, ‘The eyes of her who is glorified here below turned to the starry heavens.’ :hello2:

The cluster is roughly 1.6 billion years old, about the time that the first blue-green algae were forming on earth, and before the first plants.

Because of its age, it contains a lot of giant stars that are coming out of their main sequence, and going into the red giant stage. While processing this, I was surprised at the amount of really red stars lurking in the background.

It is 7,600 light years away from us, in Cassiopeia, and at a little below magnitude 6 is easily visible in binoculars or a small telescope.

I've hardly done clusters before, and had to take a very different processing approach to that which I take with galaxies and nebulae, so it was fun and I've learned a lot I hope happy11.gif

Focus was just a hair off unfortunately....c'est la vie icon_rolleyes.gif

Full size image here….

http://middlehillobservatory.co.uk/IMAG ... %20des.htm

Happy New Year :)

Rob

Scope. William Optics ZS80FD

Camera. Atik 16HR

Red. 14 x 130 seconds

Green. 13 x 160 seconds

Blue. 13 x 180 seconds

post-14403-133877417654_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is gorgeous Rob!!!

Such was Carolines devotion to her brother and his punishing observing schedule, when she slipped and gashed her leg one day, she was careful to ensure that it did not interfere with his work and that she was able to assist still! Also, she would very often feed him when he was grinding and polishing his mirrors....

Not sure Mrs Daz would do that for me... :hello2::)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another beauty! Clusters are not easy to render attractively but this is a winner.

A further biographical note about Caroline Herschel; she was very small, only a little over five feet, I think. As a bit of a short focus refractor myself I can only approve!

Olly

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.