Friday, May 31, 2024

Billions and Billions of Stars...

As it was a rare clear night, after taking a long exposure of the Supernova in NGC 4216, I picked a target more southerly - an open star cluster called NGC 3532 (Caldwell 91). Despite only taking a 5 minute observation the number of stars seen is amazing ! I can hear Carl Sagan's voice - "billions and billions of stars..." The area of sky in the image has an angular width about the same as holding a pencil at arm's length.

NGC 3532 (Caldwell 91) : 11h 05m 12s, −58° 44′ 1″