NGC 7789 (Caroline's Rose / White Rose Cluster)
A very rich and beautiful open cluster in Cassiopeia, nicknamed Caroline's Rose or the White Rose Cluster due to its swirling patterns of stars and dark lanes. Its many faint stars require a telescope to appreciate fully.
Open cluster in Cassiopeia. Magnitude 6.7.
Can you see it from Guyana?
From Georgetown (6.8° N) it climbs to 40° above the northern horizon at its highest; from Lethem (3.4° N), to 37° above the northern horizon. It is highest at midnight on the night of 18 Sep, in the middle of its season. The page works out tonight's rise, highest point and set for both towns in Guyana time (UTC-4), and where the Moon is.
What you'll see
- Your eyes: Not visible to the eye.
- 10x50 binoculars: Resolves into dozens of stars.
- A small telescope (80 to 100 mm): Dozens to hundreds of stars at low power.
- A camera: Spans about 40% of an APS-C frame at 2,000 mm (field 0.7° × 0.4°); needs a tracking mount.
How big, how bright, how far
- Size on the sky: 16′, 51% of the Moon's width (the Moon is about 31′ wide).
- Brightness: magnitude 6.7. Fainter than the faintest stars in Georgetown (4.3) and Lethem (6.0): binoculars or a telescope.
- Distance: 6,420 light-years. The light reaching your eye left it about 6,400 years ago.
What it is made of
- Type
- Open cluster
- Distance
- Approx. 6,420 Lightyears
- True size
- Approx. 30 Lightyears across
- Age
- about 1.6 billion years (range 1.1 billion years to 2.2 billion years)
- Notable
- Rich and old: 4,125 Gaia member stars, about 1.6 billion years.
More deep-sky objects: NGC 457 (ET Cluster / Owl Cluster) · M103 (Open Cluster) · Double Cluster (NGC 869 & NGC 884) · NGC 752 (Open Cluster) · Alpha Persei Cluster (Melotte 20) · Kemble's Cascade & NGC 1502