Posted on 02/27/2025 1:55:17 PM PST by MtnClimber
Explanation: Framed in this single, starry, telescopic field of view are two open star clusters, M35 and NGC 2158. Located within the boundaries of the constellation Gemini, they do appear to be side by side. Its stars concentrated toward the upper right, M35 is relatively nearby, though. M35 (also cataloged as NGC 2168) is a mere 2800 light-years distant, with 400 or so stars spread out over a volume about 30 light-years across. Bright blue stars frequently distinguish younger open clusters like M35, whose age is estimated at 150 million years. At lower left, NGC 2158 is about four times more distant than M35 and much more compact, shining with the more yellowish light of a population of stars over 10 times older. In general, open star clusters are found along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Loosely gravitationally bound, their member stars tend to be dispersed over billions of years as the open star clusters orbit the galactic center.
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.
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Wow.
Thru a telescope you don’t see nearly as many background stars, but the clusters aren’t difficult to find. Nice picture.
kinda cool how there are clusters scattered all over- who knows how far they are from other clusters or stars- weird that they seem to cluster in groups like that-
Wow - that is amazing
I suspect that if you lived in a planet somewhere in the middle of that cluster you might not experience night if, of course, you were able to survive what would probably be a constant bombardment of various radiation types from all those hot blue white stars!
Stars are a very social bunch! It's those black holes that are the aloof and reclusive ones...
L9l, they be anti social off the grid hermits
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