With a 6-inch Rich Field telescope, NGC 188 appears as a soft glow, speckled with tiny, often elusive individual stars. With a 6-inch Rich Field telescope, NGC 188 appears as a soft glow, speckled with tiny, often elusive individual stars. This object is both the northernmost and the oldest open star cluster visible from Earth. NGC 188 was discovered in 1831 by John Herschel – the son of German-born astronomer Sir William Herschel – and catalogued as h34 in his 1833 catalogue.
NGC 188 was discovered in 1825 and is an open star cluster in the constellation Cepheus, about 5,400 light years from Earth. NGC 188 is an open star cluster in the constellation Cepheus.
How old is the star cluster NGC 188?
We use the distance and age estimates for V 12, together with the best estimates for the metallicity and reddening of NGC 188, to examine the positions of the corresponding VRSS and Y2 isochrones relative to the cluster members in the colour-magnitude diagram. One factor contributing to the longevity of NGC 188 is that it is located far from the plane of the galaxy and has therefore avoided perturbations that regularly occur in regions of higher stellar density. For single-line stars with slow to moderate rotational velocities, the radial velocities are within ≲0.4 km s-1 (Geller et al. It is located in the constellation of Cepheus, 5 degrees from the NCP, at an estimated distance of just over 5000 light-years.
How many stars are in NGC 188?
We assume a reddening of EB-V = 0.087 for NGC 188 and derive effective component temperatures of 5900 ± 100 K and 5875 ± 100 K for the primary and secondary stars, respectively. The age determined for NGC 188 has changed drastically since the early determination of 14-16 Gyr by Sandage (196). As a cluster ages, these short-lived suns are the first to use up their primary nuclear fuel hydrogen, and their surfaces begin to cool. Since both components are close to the turn-off mass of NGC 188, a comparison of their masses and radii with theoretical isochrons can accurately constrain the age of the binary cluster and, by extension, its parent cluster.
What kind of star cluster is M67?
After seeing it in his 20-foot telescope in 1784, he described it as “a very beautiful cluster of stars; not less than 200 are to be seen”. Messier 67 (also known as M67 or NGC 268) is an open star cluster in the southern, equatorial half of Cancer. Very few planets are known to exist in star clusters, and this one has the additional distinction of orbiting a solar twin, a star almost identical in every way to the Sun. The first planet ever discovered in an open star cluster orbits the star Ain, Epsilon Tauri, one of the members of the famous Hyades star cluster in Taurus.
How do globular clusters differ from open clusters?
The reason is that almost all stars in old clusters were born at about the same time. About every few hundred million years, the cluster may encounter a huge molecular cloud, and the gravitational force exerted by the cloud may tear the cluster apart. The presence of really hot, luminous stars suggests that star formation in the association has taken place in the last million years or so. The stars in a given cluster were formed at about the same time and have the same composition, so they differ mainly in their mass and thus in their stage of life.
