Coma Star Cluster, Maria's Star Cluster, (also known as Melotte 111 or Collinder 256) (Chris Gifford)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com) · Contains: 15 Com) · NGC 4494 · The star 12 Com · The star 13 Com · The star 14 Com · The star 16 Com · The star 17 Com · The star 18 Com · The star 9 Com · The star Al Dafirah (γ Com · The star Kissin (21 Com)

Coma Star Cluster, Maria's Star Cluster, (also known as Melotte 111 or Collinder 256), Chris Gifford

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Coma Star Cluster, Maria's Star Cluster, (also known as Melotte 111 or Collinder 256)

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Coma Star Cluster, Maria's Star Cluster, (also known as Melotte 111 or Collinder 256)

The Coma Star Cluster, Maria's Star Cluster, (also known as Melotte 111 or Collinder 256) is a small but nearby open cluster located in the constellation Coma Berenices. The cluster contains about 40 brighter stars (between magnitudes 5 and 10) with a common proper motion. The brighter stars of the cluster make out a distinctive "V" shape as seen when Coma Berenices is rising. The cluster used to represent the tail of Leo. However, in around 240 BC, Ptolemy III renamed it for the Egyptian queen Berenice's legendary sacrifice of her hair.

The Hipparcos satellite and infrared color-magnitude diagram fitting have been used to establish a distance to the cluster's center of approximately 86 parsecs (280 ly). The distance established via the independent analyses agree, thereby making the cluster an important rung on the cosmic distance ladder. The open cluster is roughly twice as distant as the Hyades and covers an area of more than 7.5 degrees on the sky. The cluster is approximately 450 million years old.

I'm not seeing the "distinctive V"; however, these images were taken close to zenith for the cluster and the size of the cluster is slightly bigger than my 6D using the WO Z73. I found this cluster in APT's object database. When I passed the coordinates to Stellarium, it showed a nice region of space but no DSO designation. Since APT found this cluster for me using new search filters that I asked Yoddha for, in which he asked Maria to develop, I decided to call the cluster Maria's Star Cluster.

Original
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B

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Open Clusters

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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.

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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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Status	Advanced failed
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5709935
PixInsight job	IGBZ317A4D9NBW2XOQ8QSEP3OBJ7UM7B
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	PLATE_SOLVING_IMAGE

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Coma Star Cluster, Maria's Star Cluster, (also known as Melotte 111 or Collinder 256)

Coma Star Cluster, Maria's Star Cluster, (also known as Melotte 111 or Collinder 256)

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Coma Star Cluster, Maria's Star Cluster, (also known as Melotte 111 or Collinder 256)

Coma Star Cluster, Maria's Star Cluster, (also known as Melotte 111 or Collinder 256)

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