SOCO IMAGE GALLERY


 

NGC 6885    The 20 Vulpeculae Cluster  

NGC 6885 is a moderately sized open cluster in the constellation Vulpecula. It contains around 34 member stars and lies at a distance of around 1950 LY. It has a visual diameter of 20 arc-min and a visual magnitude of 8.1. The bright blue-ish star within the cluster is 20 Vulpeculae (HD 192044), a magnitude 5.91 class B star lying at a distance of 815 LY. To the right of the cluster in my image lies a trio of bright stars centered on the orange class K subgiant 19 Vulpeculae. This magnitude 5.51 star lies at a distance of 1418 LY. It is flanked by the two blue-white stars HD 192022 and HD 192043. They lie at distances of 1254 and 988 LY, respectively. The bright (magnitude 5.51) white star lying below this trio is 18 Vulpeculae, a class A main sequence star lying at a distance of 424 LY.
This cluster was discovered by William Herschel in 1783, although there is some confusion over its identity. Herschel described two clusters (NGC 6885 and NGC 6882) at this location, separated by only 15 arc-min. His description of the two clusters is almost identical. Since Herschel reported observing the two objects on separate nights, it is possible that he made a mistake and NGC 6885 and NGC 6882 are the same object. It has also been suggested that the overall object contains two groupings of stars— one centered on 20 Vulpeculae (NGC 6885 or Collinder 417) and another smaller group lying between 20 and 19 Vulpeculae (NGC 6882 or Collinder 416). In my image, it is difficult to distinguish between the two.

Date(s) Acquired: 4 September 2016
Telescope: Orion 120mm EON Apochromatic Refractor
Camera: QSI Model 583 with Optec NextGEN Ultra Widefield 0.7X Telecompressor

 

   Exposure Time (min) 
   Number of Exposures
   RGB
   1.5
   
   -
   
   -
   OIII
   -
   RGB
   16
   
   0
   
   0
   OIII
   0

 

Processing:
Master red, green, and blue images created using SuperSIAM.
Color composite image created using Basic Processing Procedure III.
Color composite image contrast-stretched using Adobe Photoshop.




 

 

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