NGC 136 -- Open Cluster in Cassiopeia
A Tiny Cluster Near an Orange Star
The Milky Way flows thick through Cassiopeia (Queen of Ethiopia). NGC 136 is one of the
smaller and less conspicuous of the dozens of Open Clusters dotting the constellation. Even
on a moonless night the 155mm refractor can only manage a couple of its twenty plus stars,
the rest of them melting into a faint unassuming background glow of less than two arcminutes
in size. If NGC 136 had not been picked as one of the Herschel 400 objects, I doubt that it
would be visited much by amateur astronomers.
NGC 136 shares the field-of-view with an attractive (magnitude 8.4) star. This star, SAO 11238,
is a K3III star that has a distinct orange color. I think it adds greatly to the view in the eyepiece.
smaller and less conspicuous of the dozens of Open Clusters dotting the constellation. Even
on a moonless night the 155mm refractor can only manage a couple of its twenty plus stars,
the rest of them melting into a faint unassuming background glow of less than two arcminutes
in size. If NGC 136 had not been picked as one of the Herschel 400 objects, I doubt that it
would be visited much by amateur astronomers.
NGC 136 shares the field-of-view with an attractive (magnitude 8.4) star. This star, SAO 11238,
is a K3III star that has a distinct orange color. I think it adds greatly to the view in the eyepiece.