NGC 1193, Open Star Cluster
At a distance of 14,000 light years, the open star cluster NGC 1193 can be found in the constellation Perseus.
The great distance is of course the reason why NGC 1193 has a visual brightness of only 12.6mag and appears quite small with an
apparent angular extent of only 3 arc minutes. Converted, this corresponds to a true diameter of 12 light-years, which, on the other hand,
is quite a respectable value for an open star cluster. There are about 240 stars in NGC 1193, among them 15 candidates for "Blue Straggler"
(the brightest around 15.5mag) and 12 M- giant stars.
With an age of 5 to 8 billion years, NGC 1193 is very old. Such an age is quite extraordinary, since most star clusters dissolve after a few
hundred million years, when the stars are torn away from the cluster or ejected by gravitational influences.
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I first stumbled across this cluster with my 8 inch Dobsonian. Therefore I could not see more than a faint, diffuse light spot. But with an
aperture of 50cm and a magnification of 270x that has changed. :)
NGC 1193 appears roundish to slightly elongated and in the grainy background about 15 very faint single stars fainter than 14...15mag
can be seen. There are occasional flashes of even fainter stars from the background glow. The stars seem to be evenly distributed, the brightness
increases only slightly towards the centre.
