IC4665 Open Cluster in Ophiuchus

IC 4665 is an Open Cluster in the Ophiuchus constellation. IC 4665 is situated close to the celestial equator and, as such, it is at least partly visible from both hemispheres in certain times of the year.

 

The celestial equator is an imaginary great circle on the celestial sphere that is in the same plane as Earth's equator, dividing the sky into northern and southern hemispheres.

 

I was using this object to set up and calibrate my guide scope for the night's viewing, which worked out nicely. The bright pattern of stars in this cluster also made a nice image for my first target of the night. The stars were so bright I only needed thirty 30-second exposures to capture this cluster and all those faint stars way in the distant background. The cluster is about 1400 light years away.

 

If you are interested and still reading this, IC stands for the Index Catalogue which is an update to the earlier NGC catalogue. IC 4665 is not a Messier Object and doesn't have a Messier Number.

 

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Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

 

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C

Filter: ZWO UV/IR Cut filter

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam

Guide via: ZWO OAG

 

Stacked from:

Lights 29 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Flat 30 at 360 ms, gain 101, temp -10C

Dark Flat 30 at 360 ms, gain 101 temp -10C

 

Bortle 4 sky.

Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.

Processed in PixInsight

Captions added in Photoshop CS4

 

 

 

Done