The Windmill and the Star Trails Antonio Gonzalez.png
Today's APOD is a very nice picture where you can actually identify some of the deep-sky objects!
Just above the orange cloud bank you can see a cluster, and I was about to ask the same question as I asked last time, when the APOD was
Star Trails Over Ragusa, "What cluster is that?". Joe Stieber helped me out by identifying it as the Alpha Persei Moving Cluster, seen
here in a photo by Naoyuki Kurita.
Move to the upper left from the Alpha Persei Moving Cluster, and you'll come to two blurry but bright and obvious white splotches, which are very close together. They are, of course, the
Double Cluster in Perseus, NGC 869 and NGC 884.
To the left of the Double Cluster in the APOD are two extended pink nebulas. They are the Heart and Soul Nebulas. I like Dimitrios Tsortanidis' picture so much that I want to show you his picture and not just a link to it. The Heart Nebula is the larger nebula and the Soul Nebula is the smaller one. You can also see how close the Double Cluster is (at least in the sky) to the Heart and Soul Nebulas.
The next extended pink splotch, visible if you move upwards and just a little bit to the left, is NGC 7822, seen
here in a picture by Davide De Martin and ESA/ESO/NASA.
In the picture by Bob King at left, you can see the "W" of Cassiopeia (which is really hard to spot in the APOD), the Double Cluster and the Andromeda Galaxy. Note in Bob King's picture an orange-tinted star just barely peeking out behind the line of trees, below Andromeda. That star is Beta Andromedae, and it stands out quite well in the APOD, where it looks bright and orange.
IC 1396 by Mario Richter.png
IC 1396 with red supergiant Mu Cephei at the edge,
Photo: Mario Richter.
The pink splotch at top in the APOD is IC 1396, easily recognized by the fact that bright orange supergiant star Mu Cephei is located at the edge of this nebula.
Ann
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