Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Auriga (Aur)  ·  Contains:  M 38  ·  NGC 1912
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M38 RGB (OSC), andrea tasselli
M38 RGB (OSC)
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M38 RGB (OSC)

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M38 RGB (OSC), andrea tasselli
M38 RGB (OSC)
Powered byPixInsight

M38 RGB (OSC)

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Description

I get asked, sometime, why I spend time imaging nondescript subjects such as this one. I mean, M38 isn't really a spectacular OC and one is hard pushed to understand why Mrs Messier and Mechain would ever possibly have thought that this rather spread-out OC could be mistaken for a comet. Yet no-one of us, I bet, ever observed with the kind of instruments they were using in the second half of the 18th century so we should refrain from passing judgment (something of which I am fully guilty). However, my answer to the initial question is the same that Sir Hillary famously gave; because it is there. And because it is in the Messier catalog.

Taken the same blustery night of the Double Cluster shot. So here is another reason why: something to image when anything else is out of reach. Still, I love stars and star clusters are always a beauty in my mind.

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