Messier Challenge - M93 Open Cluster

M93 in Puppis 22nd March 2020 @ 20:45 UT

A nice open cluster in Puppis (NGC 2447). The two red eyes of HD62679 and ARA 2064(?) stare back at you from the bottom left of the cluster (south-west). There are many star clusters littering this part of the Milky Way but I was hunting Messiers :-)

Image: 15 seconds x 24 frames (360 seconds total), gain 6584, bin 2x2, Raw 14, black level 99, camera temperature 10 deg C, 1 dark. Stacked in SharpCap Pro 3.2.6248.0. The image was stacked and adjusted in SharpCap. You can see the affects of field rotation at the edges of the image. North is up and east is to the right.

The cluster's altitude was 14 degrees (airmass 4!) in the south-west. Skies Bortle 4/5 but the south-west direction is the least light polluted from my location.

Equipment: Celestron CPC-800 at F5.9, Alt-Az mount, Altair Astro Hypercam 294C Pro Cooled (fan), Celestron Focuser, CPWI controlled remotely via Microsoft RDP and ASCOM.

Astrometry: M93 is 3,400 light years from us and spans 20 light years. The image has captured stars down to around magnitude 16. First recorded by Charles Messier in 1781.

Center (RA, Dec):(116.197, -23.792), Center (RA, hms):07h 44m 47.328s

Center (Dec, dms):-23° 47' 31.516" FOV Size:55 x 37.4 arcmin, Radius:0.554 deg, Pixel scale:1.6 arcsec/pixel