Messier 36 - NGC 1960 - Open Cluster - 8" ONTC Newtonian - ASI1600MM - RGB - CEM60 - Voyager (Rowland Archer)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Auriga (Aur) · Contains: B226 · HD245493 · M 36 · NGC 1960

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Messier 36 - NGC 1960 - Open Cluster - 8" ONTC Newtonian - ASI1600MM - RGB - CEM60 - Voyager

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Messier 36 - NGC 1960 - Open Cluster - 8" ONTC Newtonian - ASI1600MM - RGB - CEM60 - Voyager

Open clusters don't get as much love from astrophotographers as galaxies and nebulae, but quite a few of them are just as striking, at least to my eye.

Messier 36's scattered blue diamonds are one such beauty.

Lying in the constellation Auriga, M36, along with M37 and M38, are favorite objects of visual observers and under good skies, just visible to the naked eye.

Composed of young mostly B type stars, M36 includes some giants and super giants as well as average-sized stars. Estimates for its age and distance vary quite a bit, ranging from 16 to 125 million years in age, and 4000 to 4500 light years distant, according to Knipe and Webb's Annals of the Deep Sky.

I captured the data for this over 25 nights from September 2020 to October 2021.

Processing was done with SiriL and gess for calibration, GraXpert for gradient removal, and PixInsight for everything else. Star clusters are less demanding to process than most other deep sky objects, and here I used SPCC, Russ Croman's blur and noise exterminator tools, a masked stretch, and some adjustments in curves for brightness and color saturation.

Thanks for stopping by.

Suburban Astrophotography
ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M
Imaged with Voyager

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
PixInsight job	ULO6RWJLAPAKAKTHPB1R3ON697XQ80DL
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h36m19s.254
RA (top/left)	05h38m10s.567
RA (top/right)	05h37m55s.998
RA (bottom/right)	05h34m26s.749
RA (bottom/left)	05h34m43s.882

Dec (center)	+34°08′36″.35
Dec (top/left)	+33°39′14″.40
Dec (top/right)	+34°40′10″.35
Dec (bottom/right)	+34°37′52″.37
Dec (bottom/left)	+33°36′57″.28

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Messier 36 - NGC 1960 - Open Cluster - 8" ONTC Newtonian - ASI1600MM - RGB - CEM60 - Voyager

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