Berkeley 43 is one of the better Berkeley clusters. It is located in Aquila deep in the rift valley of the Milky Way. This means the cluster is rather highly reddened and dimmed by the dust. This also makes determining its age and distance rather difficult. WEBDA says it is 4400 light-years distant, reddened by 1.52 magnitudes and is 400 million years old.
Trying to find anything else on it I came across a paper entitled "Optical photometry and basic parameters of 10 unstudied open clusters." No wonder I wasn't finding much on it! This is a new paper published at the start of 2017. It leads off with this cluster and says it is 3400 light-years distant, reddened by 2.5 magnitudes and only 300 million years old. I find it interesting that the most significant digit in each of these measurements is one lower or dimmer than WEBDA's values. The paper can be found at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1001.3001.pdf
I tend to believe the paper's values as they are newer. Also, the cluster does appear severely reddened for the age of the stars, no matter whose age you go with. The star's colors seem more in line with an age of more than 5 billion years. Note the "hole" in the cluster's lower left side. The paper says this may be due to a dust cloud obscuring stars. I'd hoped an IR image of the cluster might answer this. I checked the 2MASS image and the hole is still there, but smaller and not as deep. In that image, the cluster looks more "Y" shaped than round. I'm still not convinced a small dense cloud is to blame for the lack of stars there. Also, I'd expect the dim stars in the hole to be very reddened and except for one they are not.
I measure the brighter stars of the cluster at about 15th magnitude. It will take a pretty good scope to see it as more than a fuzzy patch of light I suspect.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME
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| Berkeley 44 is a rather faint open cluster in Sagitta about 2 degrees west and a bit south of the far more famous Coathanger asterism in Vulpecula. According to WEBDA, it is about 5,900 light-years from us. They put its age at 1.3 billion years. That would mean its bright blue stars have already died leaving only white to red stars. This alone accounts for some of the rather red color of its stars. But WEBDA also says it has been reddened by 1.4 magnitudes. Thus it is a very red cluster and likely also dimmed to an even greater extent by the reddening dust. No wonder it is so hard to pick out. On my images right edge, a bit below Berkeley 44 is what appears to be half a star cluster trying to get into the image. I can't find any catalog showing anything at its position so apparently, it is either just an asterism or an unrecognized star cluster. I vote for the former.
While WEBDA's position for the cluster was correct this time, unlike Berkeley 83, that in my version of The Sky wasn't. Since I wasn't around when this was taken I didn't realize the position was different than that in the POSS server, SIMBAD and WEBDA. So it is rather far to the right of center.
Good thing, however. I'd have missed the planetary nebula ABELL 59/PK 53+3.1 to the upper left! When I looked at the luminance frames after calibration I thought I'd again had a dust mot fall off my filter as happened with my 2017 image of Barnard's star. I next looked at the green image and it was not there so I was sure it was bogus. But then there it was in the blue and red filters. A quick check showed I'd picked up ABELL 59. Oddly The Sky had that position correct making it easy to identify. I'd not put it on my to-do list as I'd considered it too faint for LRGB. Looking it up, there's not much on it, I found one reference saying the red is NII, not H alpha. That's not surprising for a planetary nebula though often it is confined to FLIERS (Fast Low-Ionized Emission Regions). While my green filter is supposed to pick up OIII as well as the blue filter it was nearly invisible in blue. H beta, however, is picked up only by my blue filter. That was fairly strong which would argue that the red really is H alpha to at least a rather great extent. Not having a 3nm H alpha or NII filter I can't verify this. Nor could I find any narrowband image of this one on the net. Something for the narrowband imagers to look into if interested.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Berkeley 54 is a very old star cluster, as open star clusters go, with an age of about 4 billion years. Most clusters of this age have long since been torn apart. This one is still quite condensed and a lot more obvious than most of the Berkeley clusters. I wonder how many stars its lost to the galaxy in those 4 billion years. Was it a much richer cluster then? WEBDA puts it at 7500 light-years and says it is reddened by 0.77 magnitudes. Both age and reddening explain its lack of blue stars. It is located in Cygnus about 4 degrees south and a bit east of the North American Nebula.
With much of the galaxy and beyond hidden behind nearby dust in the galaxy, there's little else in this image. While the smoke that has been a huge issue finally moved on clouds didn't so this one lost a lot of color data to the clouds but did so rather evenly across the color frames so I believe the color data is reasonably correct, just weak for fainter stars.
But suddenly satellites (mostly junk I believe) sure didn't. All but one frame had at least one satellite trail, some had two. That's close to a record when not imaging in the geostationary belt. All were removed in processing but with so few subs I use a pain to deal with. Two or three aren't a problem but the 12 trails in 9 frames is a different story. No sooner do I mention this than a Hubble image covered with asteroid trails is released. In this case the same asteroid appears several times turning 7 asteroids into 20 trails. Due to the way parallel cameras work on the HST and the being in orbit the trails are multiplied and curved rather than straight when seen from Earth. http://hubblesite.org/image/4080/news_release/2017-33
Reproduced at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
BERK54L4X10RGB2X10-67.JPG
| Berkeley 65 is an open cluster in Cassiopeia about 7400 light-years distant. It is reddened about 1.1 magnitudes according to the WEBDA database. It is located at the southeast corner of the Heart Nebula, IC 1805 a bit less than a degree NE of Maffei 1. I processed to suppress the haze of IC 1805 so the cluster would stand out more clearly.
Not much of a cluster but something to do with very hazy skies that made imaging deep impossible.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Berkeley 67 turned out more interesting than I expected when Sh2-211 showed up unexpectedly in the frame. While many Sharpless objects show up in my default settings for The Sky this wasn't one of them. Also, the field has a lot of very faint dark nebulae in it, especially to the north of the cluster. The field is located in the northeast corner of Perseus.
WEBDA puts the distance to Berkeley 67 at about 8100 light-years and says it is reddened by 0.79 magnitudes. The main reason its stars are red however is its age which is one billion years per WEBDA. The really blue stars have long since died leaving mostly white and cooler stars. Couple that with the reddening and the star colors make sense. Amateur images of this cluster in color are very rare. I found only a couple.
The dark nebula immediately north of the cluster is DOBASHI 4098. At the very top of the image is the dark nebula TGU H1036 P1. The ill-defined dark nebula north of Sh2-211 is [DB2002b] G154.61+2.53.
Sh2-211 has an infrared star cluster embedded in it. Some of the stars can be seen in visible light. The three brightest stars are part of this cluster. Like Berkeley 67 I found little in the way of amateur images of this nebula. Those also included the Berkeley cluster and one was wide field enough to catch Sh2-212 out of my frame to the southeast. It is a much better and more commonly imaged object.
Trying to find distance estimates for Sh2-211 wasn't easy. I came up with three at one source ranging from 11,500 light-years to 25,000 light-years. Some say it may be part of the same molecular cloud as Sh2-212. But the distance estimated for that object ranged from 19,500 light-years to 21,500 light-years. A much smaller range. There is some overlap. Lots of uncertainty here.
Why this interesting field is so rarely taken by amateurs is a mystery to me as there's a lot going on here.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME
Rick
http://www.mantrapskies.com//image-archive/OTHER/BERKELEY067-SH2-211/BERKELEY067L4X10RGB2X10.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/OTHER/BERKELEY067-SH2-211/BERKELEY067L4X10RGB2X10CROP.JPG
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BERKELEY 67L4X10RGB2X10.JPG
| Sometimes imaging obscure objects as I often do even leaves me wondering why I do it. This started out as just such a case. My to-do list said, "Ill-defined -- I can't even see it on the POSS images". So why did I put it on the list in the first place? Assuming I had a reason I centered it and took a focus frame. In the corner I saw a nasty reflection. I moved the scope a bit to see what I had to do to move it off the frame. Instead it didn't move. It was real. A quick plate solve and inquiry to SIMBAD showed it to be GN 04.41.8 a reflection nebula found in no other catalog SIMBAD listed. So I recentered between the position for Berkeley 68 I couldn't see and the nebula. When finished the nebula was a nice one but the cluster was still missing.
I hoped to find something on the nebula as it was interesting but came up empty. Not one paper on it but the catalog listing itself. I still can't see Berkeley 68 that was to be my target. While every source I consulted had a slightly different position all were quite close to the same position. One said it was 12 minutes in diameter. So it likely is quite spread out. Likely lost in the Milky Way stars. According to WEBDA, it is 250 million years old and 5,500 light-years away on the eastern edge of Perseus only a few degrees from the plane of the Milky Way. No wonder it is lost in the background stars. Being young and only 0.67 magnitudes reddened its major stars are likely very blue. Though the star closest to its center is red. I still can't tell which stars are in the cluster. In the annotated image I drew a green circle 12 minutes of arc in diameter centered on the average position I found. The label is a bit west of center which is just above and right of the orange star.
To its northwest is what I thought might be Berkeley 68. Instead, SIMBAD says it is the open cluster [FSR2007] 0713. The name stands for Froebrich+Scholz+Raftery, 2007. Several other clusters from this catalog are in the image. I've annotated them all but they aren't much more than Berkeley 68. For those interested in the FRS clusters see http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=J/MNRAS/444/290
The reflection nebula has a few bright blue stars on its north edge. SIMBAD says those are the open cluster Majaess 50. I was unable to find where that name comes from. If you know please let me know. All I could find from SIMBAD is that this is a common name for it rather than a catalog entry.
There's one asteroid at the top of the frame, (91635) 1999 TH79.
The nebula turns out to be the only object in the frame worth taking. As it is a nice nebula with a hint of red emission around the edges I'm surprised it is so unknown.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB 2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Berkeley 069 is a rather old open cluster (as these clusters go) in southwestern Auriga about .9 degrees below IC 410, the much imaged Tadpoles Nebula and star cluster. WEBDA puts its age at 890 million years and its distance at 9300 light-years. Due to its age, the bright, massive, blue O and B stars that make young star clusters sparkle have long since died leaving only dimmer white, yellow and red stars. It is reddened by 0.65 magnitudes further reddening its stars removing what blue might have otherwise remained. The makes it a rather dull cluster.
Some sources list its position several minutes northeast of its true position. WEBDA almost missed it in its image because of this. The Sky had a similar error which I had to compensate for. If relying on a plate solve to center it in your image be sure the coordinates are correct. The POSS server is close enough at 05 24 23.5 +32 36 29.
Seeing was poor the night this was taken. I had to scramble to get usable color data it got so bad. I even took some of it the following night but it too was very poor. To hide some of the poor seeing I am reducing this to 1.5" per pixel. If it were a better cluster I'd retake it but it just doesn't seem worth the time for this one.
This image is at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Berkeley 71 is an open star cluster in Auriga about 1.2 degrees southwest of M36. It is listed at WEBDA as being about 12,700 light-years distant and rather old for an open cluster at 631,000 years. Being in the winter Milky Way you might suspect there's some reddening from galactic dust. You'd be right. It is listed at 0.88 magnitudes of reddening. The combination of its age and reddening explains the unusual lack of blue stars and the rather large number of red stars seen in the cluster. Most blue stars have lived their lives and are long gone from the scene being just very faint white dwarfs lost in the distance and reddening. The reddening then removed even more blue light giving the cluster its rather odd color range.
Again I was plagued with clouds. One luminance frame was lost to them. Since I was sleeping while this was being taken and I didn't check on it until I just processed it I made do with just the three frames. Star clusters can survive such treatment very nicely as long as there's no related nebulosity to bring out. The field contains no objects with redshift data that I could find so no annotated image was prepared.
There is an asteroid near the top left edge. It runs from a moderately bright somewhat blue star with a fainter star just below it going southwest to a fainter pair of stars. It is (344168) 2000 YU139 at magnitude 17.7 per the minor planet center. A second asteroid (202957) 1999 RF103 at magnitude 19.0 per the minor planet center is seen even closer to the left edge just below the center. It isn't partly hidden behind a star. This allows the gap in the trail caused by my rejecting one frame to be seen. The first part of the trail and gap is lost behind the stars for the other asteroid. Still, the magnitude difference for these two appears to be only about 0.4 magnitudes, not 1.1. Considering how poor the night it's hard to tell which if not both are in error.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=3x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Berkeley 73 is an old open cluster in Monoceros. WEBDA puts its age at 4.7 billion years which means its stars are about the same age as our sun. All stars in my image are slightly red in color. A few very red stars are seen as well. These may be red giants from stars more massive than our sun or foreground stars. WEBDA puts its distance at 22,300 light-years. That puts it nearly twice as far from our galaxy's center than we are. Being on the edge of the galaxy it isn't hit by severe tidal forces. Most clusters are torn apart before reaching such a ripe old age as this one is. It's position at the edge of the galaxy likely has a lot to do with its survival. I'd have expected such a distant cluster to be reddened by dust in the galaxy but apparently, there's not much as it is said to be reddened by only 0.1 magnitude.
The bright red star at the top of the cluster is definitely not a cluster member. TheSky puts its distance at only 31 light-years. At nearly 10 parsecs its magnitude of 9.6 is only slightly brighter than its absolute magnitude. That would make it about 100 times fainter than our sun and therefore likely a main sequence red dwarf star, not a red giant.
Conditions for this image was poor, the sky background was 4 times brighter than normal. There was no moon so where the light came from I don't know. This was taken when I wasn't around. The bright sky came as a surprise when I went to process it. This greatly reduced the signal to noise ratio. Good thing I was taking an open cluster as otherwise faint detail would have been lost due to insufficient exposure for such a bright sky.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Berkeley 80 is an open cluster in western Aquila. WEBDA says it is some 10,750 light-years distant. It is in the dark nebula LDN 617 whose western edge is near the right edge of my image. As you might suspect the cloud reddens it by 1.1 magnitudes making the stars appear redder than their 300 million year age would suggest. While I've found many Berkeley clusters have somewhat erroneous coordinates, many being off by more than the cluster's diameter. This one, however, is right on for a change. That was good as this one was taken automatically, I wasn't around to make sure it was centered.
This image is at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME
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