Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  NGC 188
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NGC188, hughsie
NGC188
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NGC188

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC188, hughsie
NGC188
Powered byPixInsight

NGC188

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Description

There are three constants when I am imaging, my equipment, clear skies and Polaris. Every time I image I look at Polaris but I have never really taken an interest in it other than for polar alignment. Tonight I decided to make the region around Polaris my focus.

NGC188 is located in the constellation Cepheus and is 5° from the celestial north pole. It is one of the oldest known open clusters, estimated to be 6-7 billion years of age. As you would expect with a star cluster of this age, there are no white main sequence stars and its brightest components are mainly yellow class giants.

Surprisingly, after all this time the stars making up the cluster have not drifted apart under the gravitational influence of our galaxy. This is believed to be due to the fact that it is located some 5,000 light years above the Milky Way’s disc.

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NGC188, hughsie

In these collections

Star Clusters