Sky and Telescope - January 2018 - 56

JANUARY 2018 OBSERVING
Deep-Sky Wonders

40
50

42
48

p The open cluster Collinder 463 is relatively easy to find: Just draw an imaginary trapezoid using
the stars 40, 42, 48, and 50 Cassiopeiae as the corners, then look inside. Treasure! Collinder 463
lies about 2,300 light-years away from us.

of Skiff 1 include the red giant V1267
Cas, a semi-regular variable whose
visual magnitude is usually given as 12
to 12½. The star probably dwells in the
cluster's background.
Skiff 1 shows a granular hazy patch
about 6′ across through my 105mm
scope at 87×. The group's brightest star,
10th magnitude, stands out in the west,
accompanied by a 12th-magnitude star

Clusters & Asterisms in the Queen
Object

Type

Dist. (l-y)

Mag(v)

Size/Sep

Dec.

NGC 381

Open cluster

3,700

9.3

7′

NGC 366

Open cluster

5,800

9.8

4′

1h 06.5m

+62° 14′

05.2m

+62° 01′

NGC 358
Berkeley 62

08.3m

+61° 35′

Asterism

10.1

3′

Open cluster

6,000

9.3

10′

1h 01.2m

+63° 57′
+63° 18′

Asterism

2.8°

Dolidze 13

Open cluster

7,800

12′

0h 50.0m +64° 08′

King 16

Open cluster

6,300

10.3

5′

0h 43.7m

+64° 11′

Berkeley 4

Open cluster

8,000

10.6

4′

0h 45.2m

+64° 24′

58.4m

+68° 28′
+71° 49′

Eddie's Coaster

02.3m

Skiff 1

Open cluster

5,200

7′

Collinder 463

Open cluster

2,300

5.7

57′

1h 45.8 m

Angular sizes and separations are from recent catalogs. Visually, an object's size is often smaller than the
cataloged value and varies according to the aperture and magnification of the viewing instrument. Right
ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0.

JA N UA RY 2 018 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

41″ to its southeast. V1267 Cas is visible
north of center, and a few extremely
faint stars sparkle in and out of view.
About 30 stars, mostly faint to extremely
faint, peek out for the 10-inch scope at
192×. They coalesce into a 7′ group with
a nearly starless void south-southwest of
the group's center.
Our ﬁnal stop is Collinder 463, a
large cluster boxed in by the trapezoid
fashioned by 40, 42, 48, and 50 Cassiopeiae, stars visible to the unaided eye
from my home. Trapezoid and cluster
ﬁt nicely in the 3.7° ﬁeld of view of
18×50 image-stabilized binoculars, with
Cr 463 splashing about 40 stars across
nearly 1° of sky. Most of the stars are
gathered into 35′-wide bunch and a
narrow arm sweeping 15′ northward
from its northwestern edge. The brightest gems form a fat crescent, its lucida
glowing orange. I count 75 stars with
the 105-mm scope at 28×.
Swedish astronomer Per Arne Collinder discovered Cr 463 and included it in
his 1931 doctoral dissertation. He noted
that it looked like a very good cluster
specimen but might simply appear so
due to obscuring matter around it. Collinder 463 is now deemed a true cluster.
¢ Contributing Editor SUE FRENCH
wishes everyone a star-filled new year.

A K IR A FUJII

in haze, which becomes granular at
118×. At 192× a dozen stars precipitate
from the haze amid lingering scraps of
mist. Altogether they cover about 3′.
Surveying Berkeley 4 at 118×, I see 20
stars forming a southward-pointing
arrowhead almost 4′ long.
King clusters are named for astronomer Ivan R. King. As a Junior Fellow at
Harvard College Observatory, King had
access to plates of the sky surveys taken
with the 16-inch Metcalf and 24-inch
Bruce refractors. He says they were fun
to look at, and he began to notice clusters that had never been cataloged. His
ﬁrst 21 objects were published in the
observatory's bulletin in 1949, although
King 3 turned out to be a previously
discovered object.
Leaping farther northward we'll
address the open cluster Skiff 1, found
by professional and amateur astronomer Brian Skiff. Skiff noticed the group
while making visual classiﬁcations
of galaxies on POSS-II ﬁlms. It's an
ancient cluster with an age of about 1.2
billion years. The apparent boundaries

Skiff 1
Ï

CR 463

Sky and Telescope - January 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - January 2018