FIUCASE
Messier 52
Messier 52 is an open cluster of stars located in the constellation Cassiopeia. Open clusters are clusters of stars found in or near the disk of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Astronomers think they were all born at roughly the same time out of the same gas cloud. In the case of M52, there could be as many as 193 members, the brightest as seen from Earth is 11th magnitude. Stellar density estimates indicate there are about 3 stars per cubic parsec in the center of the cluster. Some estimates place its age as only 35 million years old, that’s young given the Earth is nearly 4.8 Billion years old! It is about 5,200 (+- 2000) light years away, but this distance is uncertain since there is a fair amount of dust and gas between us and the cluster. This image was created by combining RGBL images taken with the FLI CCD camera and the ACE 24” telescope at the Stocker AstroScience center on 1106/2016 by Dr. Webb. The data reduction and color combination, also by Dr. Webb, left some streaks across the top of the image that are not real and are the result of faulty flat field images. These images are part of the Stocker Centers Messier project.
Messier 52
Messier 52 is an open cluster of stars located in the constellation Cassiopeia. Open clusters are clusters of stars found in or near the disk of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Astronomers think they were all born at roughly the same time out of the same gas cloud. In the case of M52, there could be as many as 193 members, the brightest as seen from Earth is 11th magnitude. Stellar density estimates indicate there are about 3 stars per cubic parsec in the center of the cluster. Some estimates place its age as only 35 million years old, that’s young given the Earth is nearly 4.8 Billion years old! It is about 5,200 (+- 2000) light years away, but this distance is uncertain since there is a fair amount of dust and gas between us and the cluster. This image was created by combining RGBL images taken with the FLI CCD camera and the ACE 24” telescope at the Stocker AstroScience center on 1106/2016 by Dr. Webb. The data reduction and color combination, also by Dr. Webb, left some streaks across the top of the image that are not real and are the result of faulty flat field images. These images are part of the Stocker Centers Messier project.