M 36 - The Pinwheel Cluster (Monty Chandler)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Auriga (Aur) · Contains: B226 · HD244487 · HD244595 · HD244689 · HD244753 · HD244765 · HD244788 · HD244859 · HD244889 · HD245005 · HD245121 · HD245333 · HD245348 · HD245439 · HD245469 · HD245493 · HD245575 · HD245617 · HD245636 · HD245681 · HD245702 · HD245723 · HD245804 · HD245831 · HD245967 · HD37138 · M 36 · NGC 1960

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M 36 - The Pinwheel Cluster

Link: https://montychandler.smugmug.com/Astrophotography/The-Heavans/i-jg7k7D3/A

Powered byPixInsight

M 36 - The Pinwheel Cluster

Link: https://montychandler.smugmug.com/Astrophotography/The-Heavans/i-jg7k7D3/A

Messier 36 (M36), also known as NGC 1960, is an open cluster of stars in the somewhat northern Auriga constellation and is also known as the Pinwheel Cluster. It is located in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, about 4,300 light years from Earth. M36 is one of three bright star clusters in Auriga. It is the smallest and least populated of the three. M36 includes ten stars with a visual magnitude brighter than 10, and 178 down to magnitude 14. There is a large amount of interstellar dust, or IFN, in the Auriga region of the sky.

M36 was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna before 1654. It is one of the fainter open clusters in Messier's catalog. However, it can be easily seen with binoculars or small telescopes. Binoculars will show a faint, fuzzy patch of light. Small telescopes at low or medium powers will reveal the brightest stars in the cluster, arranged in an X-type shape, and thus the moniker of pinwheel cluster.

M36 is located near other deep sky objects, including the two clusters M37 and M38, and the Flaming Star Nebula, IC 405. You can easily spot these targets using binoculars and aiming them toward the bright star Capella.

This photograph was taken in January 2023, from my driveway. It consists of 56 2 minute exposures, or just shy of 2 hrs.

Cheers!

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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.
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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	8407048
PixInsight job	XKF9W15OLJFIYFC57HHDH89RM3Y0A16N
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h36m13s.677
RA (top/left)	05h31m46s.774
RA (top/right)	05h37m50s.270
RA (bottom/right)	05h40m40s.399
RA (bottom/left)	05h34m35s.450

Dec (center)	+34°08′05″.25
Dec (top/left)	+34°09′10″.60
Dec (top/right)	+33°16′38″.71
Dec (bottom/right)	+34°06′24″.84
Dec (bottom/left)	+34°59′27″.84

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M 36 - The Pinwheel Cluster

M 36 - The Pinwheel Cluster

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M 36 - The Pinwheel Cluster

M 36 - The Pinwheel Cluster

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