NGC 225 open star cluster in Cassiopeia

Hello everyone once again. 

After dinner headed on Tuesday night I headed back out to the scope as I had the great desire to observe an open cluster in Cassiopeia. NGC 225 is listed in Volume 1 of Robert Burnham’s Celestial Handbook and I discovered I had never observed this open cluster before at all.

It is a large cluster 14’ wide which is nearly half the diameter of a Full Moon.

I refused to go higher than 112X. My Pentax 10mm eyepiece gives 27’ fov. NGC 225’s total magnitude is +7.

There are 5 stars brighter than magnitude 10. But I saw 20 stars in all – with strong evidence of much fainter ones in the background.

The cluster is quite well scattered with a void area below the centre.

Instantly I became a fan of NGC 225.

The brightest star is magnitude 9.3 and there is a delightful orange star on the western side of the centre which has the designation TYC 4016 94. Its magnitude is 9.8. All the other stars seemed white to yours truly.

I am also extremely thrilled to have noticed that NGC 255 has a splendid nickname: The Sailboat Cluster. Being the owner of an apochromatic refractor with a mirror diagonal in place I can very much state it does look very similar to a Sailboat.

There are stars which shape the hull - plus more which form the sail. How unique is that? The shape cannot have been formed by accident! 

Clear skies to one and all, 

Aubrey. 

Hi Aubrey,

Sounds like you had a great night last Tuesday observing NGC 225. I've yet to observe it, but your vivid description of it gives me the urge to take a look for myself. 

Clear skies,

Darren.

Hello Darren. 

You're so enthusiastic about every object I observe. Thank you for each and everyone of your remarks. There are very much a great encouragement for me to get outside to observe even more.

You might just note that your 10" Dobsonian reflector will show the Sailboat Cluster (NGC 225) upside down. Therefore the cluster will look quite bit different. 

Clear skies from Aubrey.