Astronomy Picture of the Day - Three Clusters in Puppis

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 18 Feb, 2022 | Image Credit & Copyright: Dave Doctor

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Galactic or open star clusters are young. The swarms of stars are born together near the plane of the Milky Way, but their numbers steadily dwindle as cluster members are ejected by galactic tides and gravitational interactions. Caught in this telescopic frame over three degrees across are three good examples of galactic star clusters, seen toward the southern sky's nautical constellation Puppis. Below and left, M46 is some 5,500 light-years in the distance. Right of center M47 is only 1,600 light-years away and NGC 2423 (top) is about 2500 light-years distant. Around 300 million years young M46 contains a few hundred stars in a region about 30 light-years across. Sharp eyes can spot a planetary nebula, NGC 2438, at about 11 o'clock against the M46 cluster stars. But that nebula's central star is billions of years old, and NGC 2438 is likely a foreground object only by chance along the line of sight to youthful M46. Even younger, aged around 80 million years, M47 is a smaller and looser star cluster spanning about 10 light-years. Star cluster NGC 2423 is pushing about 750 million years in age though. NGC 2423 is known to harbor an extrasolar planet, detected orbiting one of its red giant stars.

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[ClearCase_guy]

Three clusters of puppies, as requested.

[neverevergiveup]

They’re really cute.

[NeverTyranny]

Fantastic!

[MtnClimber]

I like yours better!

[telescope115]

Beautiful! Three more “Jewel Box” clusters in the sky!

[F450-V10]

Star clusters are some of the funnest objects to see in the sky through a telescope. Or binoculars.

[Doctor Congo]

I’m sorry young man, but your x-rays indicate that you have three clusters in your puppis.

[DannyTN]

Oh you beat me to it!

[DannyTN]

It's a 3D Sterogram. If you stare at it long enough with just the right focus, you see this...

[MtnClimber]

I think I saw it, but after you posted I am sure.

[dragnet2]

Open star clusters are pretty cool and can make for spectacular wide field shots. Globular clusters are more tightly bound clusters. Below is M-13, a globular cluster, about 25,000 light years from earth, coming in at about 13 billion years old. It contains several hundred thousand stars. M-13 orbits our Milky Way Galaxy and the blue stars in the image are newly formed stars. I obtained this image using a consumer grade DSLR camera.

[Conan the Librarian]

They didn’t mention it that I saw, but M46 also has a planetary nebula included.

[mountn man]

[FroggyTheGremlim]

If I stretch the image with my fingers I can see another small cluster about halfway on an arc berween M46 and M47.