2025-11-21

• Condition: E6
• Quality: 19.75 mpsas
• Location: Home, Spearfish: 44.49, -103.87

I’ve been intimidated lately by my current list of Open Cluster and Multiple Star targets. Some of the Open Clusters have no posted magnitude and have very little information on them when I look them up online. For the Multiple Stars I at least have the Washington Double Star catalog where I can look them up, but many seem to have some very close siblings which could make this a challenge.

Unable to choose a target for the night I remember taking a look at NGC 884 before heading in the other night and thinking to myself: “What a beautiful target… I should sketch it sometime!”

6:11PM

• Target: NGC 884, Double Cluster with 869
• Const: Perseus
• RaDec: 02h22m +57.08
• Type: Open Cluster
• Scope: AT102ED
• Setting: 55x

I did not come close to capturing all of the stars in the FoV. Instead I focused on trying to capture the basic patterns and shapes using the more prominent stars in the area then filling in a rough representation of where the dimmer stars pop up. About thirty minutes into the sketch my pencil tip broke creating a long white line through the lower half of the sketch. Thankfully, after coming in for the night I was able to get that mistake resolved.