NGC 2169 - THE "37" CLUSTER

ORION 

 (ra: 06.08,4/ dec +13:57)

January 2010, Home Backyard in Buenos Aires, Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Open Cluster

Apparent Magnitude: 5.9

Apparent Diameter: 7 arc minutes

DISTANCE: 3600 lights years

IMAGE INFORMATION

SCOPE: Celestron C8 SCT working at f5.1

CAMERA: SXVF H9

GUIDING: William Optics Zenithstar 66 with WO 0.8 x fr/ff

IMAGE ACQUISITION: AstroArt 3.0 - Control Interface 3.72 plug in

FILTERS: Astronomik Type II - Atik Filter Wheel

SKY CONDITIONS: urban skies - transparency bad - almost full Moon

EXPOSURES: LRGB (20,20,20,20) - Maximum subs posible: 2 minutes

PROCESSING: Images Plus, CCD Sharp, Photoshop CS2

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

Always was intrigued about this funny open cluster. A good target to show visually to non astronomy related friends. It requires high magnification because is rather small. It spans over a distance of only 7 light years. It has approximately 30 stars and the brightest is magnitude 6.94.

With the Moon at full the longer exposure time goes to 2 minutes, before the image gets useless. Flash light was not necessary to handle the scope.