Date Posted: 4/25/2025
Date Taken: Seven nights, from 10/22 thru 10/26/2024
Scope: Planewave CDK 12.5 f/8, 2541mm
Camera: SBIG STL-11000 with Astrodon Tru-Balance E-Series Gen2 filters
Temp: -15C
Mount: Losmandy Titan
Guiding: On-axis via ONAG-XM and SX UltraStar at 2541mm. FocusLock real-time focus for focusing.
Exposure: LRGB, 360::110:105:115, total 11.5 hours. Luminance and Ha 15min unbinned; RGB 5min binned 2x2.

Calibrated and Stacked with CCDStack2; RGB combine and DDP with MaximDL. Processed with CS4.

NGC 225, known as the Sailboat Cluster, is a small, open cluster of bright stars in Cassiopeia. One of its bright stars is responsible for illuminating a much fainter reflection nebula catalogued as vdB4 at the center of this image. The cluster is young, with an estimated age of 100-150 million years. many of the stars are double stars, although this will probably change as the cluster ages through gravitational interactions.

Had digital cameras existed in 1783 when Caroline Herschel discovered the cluster, I believe it would have been called the Crawdad Cluster. I see vdB4 as a crayfish crawling out from under a rock (the unnamed dark nebula at bottom center) to feast on the cluster of luminous blue stars - or maybe he's juggling them?