NGC 457- The Dragonfly Cluster or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia (John Butler)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas) · Contains: NGC 436 · NGC 457 · The star φCas

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 457- The Dragonfly Cluster or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 457- The Dragonfly Cluster or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia

From Freestarcharts.com:

NGC 457 is the brightest open cluster in Cassiopeia and one of the finest objects of its type in the northern sky. At magnitude +6.4, it's just beyond naked-eye visibility but easily seen with binoculars and a beautiful sight through telescopes. The brightest cluster stars are arranged in prominent lines and curves lines appearing to resemble an Owl shape, hence the popular name "the Owl Cluster". It's located 7,900 light-years distant.

NGC 457 was discovered by William Herschel in 1787. Finding the Owl Cluster is easy; it's positioned two degrees south-southeast of eclipsing binary star system Ruchbah (δ Cas - mag. +2.7). This star is one component of the characteristic "W" asterism of Cassiopeia. The brightest star inside NGC 457 is Phi Cas (φ Cas - mag. +5.0). Despite not being a member of the cluster, this foreground star is visible to the naked eye. Together with another non-cluster star - seventh magnitude HD 7902 (HIP 6229) - they form the bright eyes of the Owl greatly adding to the splendour of the view through backyard scopes.

NGC 457 is best seen from Northern Hemisphere latitudes during August, September and October. It appears high in the sky and even overhead from many locations. From latitudes greater than 32N, the Owl is circumpolar and never sets.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1213601
PixInsight job	DDI90H9LJW7XYJ44JTQWLZ4RYK2FEQ5Z
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 457- The Dragonfly Cluster or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia

NGC 457- The Dragonfly Cluster or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 457- The Dragonfly Cluster or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia

NGC 457- The Dragonfly Cluster or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information