In the early morning hours of June 18, 2020 I aimed my 8" SCT towards the constellation Cassiopeia in order to located the open cluster M52. With my 8-24mm zoom eyepiece set at 24mm I began observing and sketching. I must make a note here that there is no associated nebula with M52, but in my observation, and represented in my sketch there is almost a slight appearance of nebula. I'm not saying I saw nebula, but that is sort of what it looked like at the eyepiece. It could have been small unresolved stars that just looked hazy, it could have been due to a buildup of dew on the corrector plate of the SCT, I'm not really sure. I do know that Charles Messier even said, "Cluster of very small stars, mingled with nebulosity," so I'm not the only one that saw it. I suppose I should also include the quote from William Herschel, "All resolved into innumerable small stars without any suspicion of nebulosity."
M52's distance is difficult to pinpoint and is estimated to be between 3,000-7,000 light years away with a diameter of 22 light years. M52 contains around 193 probable stars and around 35 million years old.
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| M52 Open Cluster in Cassiopeia |
This sketch was done on black canson paper, stars were placed with white charcoal pencil, and the hints of nebulosity were placed with a white pastel pencil and blending stump. I also used a kneaded eraser to dim stars so they were not all appearing as the same brightness.
To see where this object is located in the sky along with a time lapse of me creating this sketch at the eyepiece check out the video below:
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