This, along with M67, are thought to be among the very oldest open clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. NGC188 is some 7 billion years old. The sun, in comparison, is a mere 4 billion years old. The cluster is about 5000 light years away and located on the sky not far from The North Star, Polaris. The cluster stars are fainter, cooler and smaller than the sun. The bright stars, showing diffraction spikes, are not cluster members but relatively nearby and giant neighbours to the sun lying between us and the cluster by happenstance.
RGB Combination
Data
Altitude at culmination 49°
Airmass Value (sec z) 1.3
Taking Camera SBIG STL-11002XM
Nova Scotia winter 2019, ~mag 6.4 - @-20C
Imaging OTA
AG Optics iDK 14.5"
Equivalent focal length and ratio
2465mm f/6.7
Mount
Astro-Physics 1600GTO
Guiding
PHD2/ONAG-XM/Lodestar X2
RGB Total Integration Time 5hrs 15mins
L R21X5 min, G-21X5 min, B21X5 min-Astrodon Gen 2 I series Filters. Binned 1X1
Acquisition
Main Sequence Software-Sequence Generator Pro
Calibration and Stacking
Darks, Flats and Bias - Stacked and calibrated with PixInsight
Reprocessed Jan 2023
PixInsight, Affinity Photo v.2.03 and Bob Franke's CCDBand-Aid
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