Berkeley 45, Open Star Cluster
According to WEBDA, the star cluster "Berkeley 45" can be found at a distance of 7,500 light-years in the constellation Aquila. But if you look at
the star distribution with the help of the data of the astrometry satellite "GAIA", a very large part of the stars lies in a distance of 12-13,000 light
years.
The brightest star is 12.5mag bright, but it doesn't seem to belong to the cluster, because according to GAIA it is 5,000 light-years away from Earth
and therefore 7,000 light-years in the foreground of Berkeley 45.
With a galactic latitude of +1.1° Berkeley 45 is located only slightly above the galactic plane.
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In a 20" telescope, at a magnification of 120x, a grainy patch of light with a few scattered stars can be seen.
Then at 270x, 10-15 faint individual stars are visible, framed by two brighter ones. The cluster has a rather irregular shape overall, the background
still appears grainy. The surrounding area is rich in stars. A really nice object.
