Caldwell 28

A ghosty cluster among the stars

The other night I was stargazing  from my little window of sky between the trees and stumble into the constellation of Andromeda. After watching Andromeda Galaxy and its two companions, M32 and M110 for several minutes, I decided to hunt for a new object that I had not record before. Stellarium was showing me an open cluster in the skirts of Andromeda: C28, a discreet 5.7 magnitude open cluster.

At the time of the observation, 23:36 hours, Andromeda had reached an altitude of 40 degrees over the eastern horizon. High enough to avoid local light pollution, but the whole area was touched by the huge dome of light pollution coming from Silicon Valley.

Making it to the area was not a challenge, but due to the low magnification in the binoculars, seeing the components of the cluster was relatively difficult. Most of those dim unresolved stars turn into hazy areas slightly lighter than the background.

In the sketch, there are three groups of stars that could be  the cluster, but only one is. The first group of bright stars makes a hook shape, below them, there is a second group with most of its stars forming a crown shape and finally, almost touching the lower edge the of FOV there are some scattered stars. That is where the open cluster is located. Try to enjoy the sketch in a dark room to see the subtle details in the background and around the cluster. This is a close simulation of the view in my Bortle 5 skies in US.

Thanks for reading!

LG

Edited by Jennifer Steinberg (editor in chief).