- NGC 457 Dragonfly, Owl or Ghost Cluster
NGC 457 is a rich, beautiful open cluster located within the stream of the Winter Milky Way in the constellation Cassiopeia. Visually, NGC 457 has an apparent diamter of around 13 arc-min and a magnitude of 6.4. It contains around 200 member stars and lies at a distance of around 8000 LY.
NGC 457 is one of those objects that has an appearance that lends itself to interpretation by an active imagination. The two brightest stars, HD 7927 (φ Cassiopeiae) and HD 7902 at magnitudes of 4.95 and 6.99, respectively, can easily be visualized as the "eyes" of some creature. There are various ideas as to what the creature is. Susan French of Sky and Telescope sees a dragonfly with outstretched wings marked by the fans of smaller stars reaching out along each side of the cluster. Similarly, David Eicher, editor of Astronomy, sees an owl with outstretched wings. And Stephen O'Meara, author of the series of Deep Sky Companion books, sees a ghostly spectre peering out from space, with its arms upraised in an ominous gesture. There are other interpretations, but these are the three that I like the best.
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