NGC 884/869 - 150mm Pentax lens (Tom Gray)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Perseus (Per) · Contains: 10 Per · 7 chi Per · 8 Per · Double cluster · HD13543 · HD13658 · HD13659 · HD13716 · HD13744 · HD13772 · HD13824 · HD13831 · HD13841 · HD13854 · HD13866 · HD13890 · HD13910 · HD13929 · HD13969 · HD13970 · HD14013 · HD14014 · HD14026 · HD14039 · HD14052 · HD14053 · HD14093 · HD14134 · HD14143 · HD14210 · And 38 more.

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 884/869 - 150mm Pentax lens

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 884/869 - 150mm Pentax lens

My last image from my recent foray North to my dark sky site on the edge of the Highlands. NGC 844/869 - the double cluster in Perseus - is a treasure trove of starry jewels. A fine sight in a wide angle eyepiece and equally a large format camera. My previous efforts to image this have only just squeezed both clusters into the field, but using a Pentax SLR zoom lens at 150 mm frames this nicely.

Lying at 7,500 LY in the northern end of the Milky Way, they were first described by Hipparchos in 130 BC, making up the jeweled hilt of the sword used by Perseus to slay Medusa in Greek mythology. There seems to be some uncertainty about their actual age, stated from 5.6 and 3.2, to 12 million years old. They lie a few hundred LY apart from each other, and are made up of hot young blue stars, with a scattering of blue-white and red supergiants.

Captured in Meade Envisage, aligned and stacked in ASTAP, with minimal processing in Startools. Diffraction spikes arise from the iris in my SLR lens - I used a higher f stop to increase the overall sharpness of the image.

Original
Final
B

B

Description: A desaturated version, which I think I prefer (and slightly 'truer blue' in those young supergiants)

Uploaded: ...

Altair Astro 183 M/C Hypercams
Camera Lens Astrophotography
UK Astro-Imaging
Low-Cost Astrophotography

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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5004395
PixInsight job	MZ9Z01TWKM9HR2LH1U30INFH6V64YNO4
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	02h20m50s.50
RA (top/left)	02h27m43s.25
RA (top/right)	02h27m35s.32
RA (bottom/right)	02h13m29s.67
RA (bottom/left)	02h14m33s.26

Dec (center)	+57°15′46″.9
Dec (top/left)	+56°03′10″.0
Dec (top/right)	+58°30′48″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	+58°27′06″.7
Dec (bottom/left)	+55°59′27″.5

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 884/869 - 150mm Pentax lens

NGC 884/869 - 150mm Pentax lens

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

B

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 884/869 - 150mm Pentax lens

NGC 884/869 - 150mm Pentax lens

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

B

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

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?

Delete this revision?

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