Distances to M36/37/38

[mdstuart]

I was reading my new Christmas pressie book which had one of those charts of the local neighbourhood with clusters shown. M45 and M44 were shown as local in the Orion arm of the galaxy but then I say the trio M36/37/38 all shown a fair bit further out in the Perseus arm.

I am sure its just me but those three clusters look very different and therefore wrongly? assumed they were different distances. M36 looks so much more spaced out than M37 and gives the impression its closer.

So what is the deal are the stars all the same sort and magnitude so its assumed they are the same distance away?

Mark

[barkis]

My Messier Album, quotes M36, at 4100 ly. M37 at 4600ly, and M38 at 4200 ly.

My Album is over 30 years old, so those distances may have been modified by later measurements .

Ron.

[mdstuart]

Yes but in the same ball park. M45 M35 are much closer I gather..

It was just odd to see many of the other bright cluster with distances of less than 2000 LY and these three all at 4 to 4.5K LY...

Thanks for your feedback though.

Mark