Quote:
Originally Posted by gaseous
A very modest list of some of the dimmer OC's around the southern cross area viewed on Monday night after my attempt to split Beta Muscae crashed and burned. Bortle 5 through an 8" dob. I dare say some of these would be more impressive in darker skies with larger aperture. There are so many OC's in this area. The double star pairing off to the side of NGC 4337 was a highlight.
NGC 5823
A multitude of faint stars with almost a hint of nebulosity where they can’t be resolved.
NGC 5822
Wide field of many moderately bright stars.
NGC 5662
Quite a large smattering of reasonably bright stars with a particularly nice reddish orange star in the centre
Lo 807
Small diffuse cluster.
NGC 4852
Large and quite bright cluster with the appearance of multiple arms of quite bright stars, not many stars though.
NGC 4337
Very faint with only about a dozen very dim stars but a nice bright little pair off to the side looking blue and orange.
Ha 5
Small and sparse oc with a linear shape and a smaller branch coming off the midpoint at 90 degrees not many stars but several quite bright ones.
NGC 4349
Quite a good size cluster with a nice sprinkling of maybe 100+ stars.
NGC 4439
Nice little asterism, looks like a fish hook with a dim star in the centre of the hook
Tr 20
Very faint dusting of several stars.
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G'Day Patrick, fantastic report and thanks for spotlighting some of the fainter and lesser know open clusters of the southern milky way.
NGC 5822 in Lupus is one of my favourites. I also love observing NGC 4439 in Crux, it reminds me of the Euro symbol. Wishing you clear skies!
Cheers
Joe