Perseus Double Cluster NGC 869 and NGC 884 (Jim Raskett)

Perseus Double Cluster NGC 869 and NGC 884

From Wikipedia:
The Double Cluster (also known as Caldwell 14) consists of the open clusters NGC 869 and NGC 884 (often designated h Persei and χ (chi) Persei, respectively), which are close together in the constellation Perseus. Both visible with the naked eye, NGC 869 and NGC 884 lie at a distance of about 7,500 light years in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy.NGC 869 has a mass of 4,700 solar masses and NGC 884 weighs in at 3,700 solar masses; both clusters are surrounded with a very extensive halo of stars, with a total mass for the complex of at least 20,000 solar masses. They form the core of the Perseus OB1 association of young hot stars.Based on their individual stars, the clusters are relatively young, both 14 million years old.In comparison, the Pleiades have an estimated age ranging from 75 million years to 150 million years.There are more than 300 blue-white super-giant stars in each of the clusters. The clusters are also blueshifted, with NGC 869 approaching Earth at a speed of 39 km/s (24 mi/s) and NGC 884 approaching at a similar speed of 38 km/s (24 mi/s). Their hottest main sequence stars are of spectral type B0. NGC 884 includes five prominent red supergiant stars, all variable and all around 8th magnitude: RS Persei, AD Persei, FZ Persei, V403 Persei, and V439 Persei.

I rarely image star clusters and I need work on processing stars, so I imaged the Double Cluster while waiting for another target to rise.
First pass (a really quick one!) at the Double Cluster.
A fill-in target quite low in the sky.About 4.5 hours of 60 second exposures over two early evenings.
This process was a super quick one just to play around with the data and it looked cool, so I went with it.
Basic color calibration and a simple STF/HT stretch, some nr and a bit of saturation (about as basic as you can get).I have a drizzled version that I will start work on soon.

Thanks for looking and comments welcome!

Jim

Original
B
Final
C

B

Description: Cropped

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Small adjustments in Photoshop with a wider field included.

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8657779
PixInsight job	Z2HB3OFJCE1M1W3GZIMZMSVWHGRQA5B7
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	02h20m49s.23
RA (top/left)	02h08m39s.65
RA (top/right)	02h19m55s.72
RA (bottom/right)	02h32m54s.90
RA (bottom/left)	02h21m47s.85

Dec (center)	+57°08′15″.1
Dec (top/left)	+57°13′03″.4
Dec (top/right)	+55°29′33″.7
Dec (bottom/right)	+56°59′01″.7
Dec (bottom/left)	+58°46′52″.6

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