The Jewel Box Cluster (NGC 4755)

 

According to the NASA APOD website,

'The great variety of star colors in this open cluster underlie it's name: The Jewel Box.

The bright central star Kappa Crucis is red, in contrast to the many blue stars that surround it.

The cluster contains just over 100 stars, and might be no older than 10 million years.

Open clusters are younger, contain few stars, and contain a much higher fraction of blue stars than do globular clusters.

This Jewel Box lies about 7500 light-years away,

so the light that we see today was emitted from the clusters before even the Great Pyramids in Egypt were built.

 

Photoshop was used to enhance the colours of the cluster and surrounding field stars.

The rays from top left? Sorry, they are not from a celestial deity....

They are simply a diffraction effect from the Bright star Beta Crucis or Mimosa, just out of the visible field

 

The above image was taken from light polluted urban skies of southern Sydney.

Equipment set-up

Alluna Optics RC16

Alluna Optics AFC

SBIG STX16803 and FW5

Software Bisque

Paramount PMEII

 

Data capture CCDops, Calibration MaxIm CCD, Processing PixInsight, Photoschop CC 2017

Copyright Peter J Ward 2017

Can you see all 26 grey scales above?