Field Centred at (plate solve from nova.astrometry.net):
RA: 08h 51m 29s
Dec: +11° 49′ 26″
Up is 90.7 degrees E of N

M67 is an open cluster located in Cancer – it is much smaller than it’s larger neighbour M44 (The Beehive Cluster/Praesepe), and while not the oldest open cluster (with an age estimated to be 4 billion years), it is close at about 800-900ly distance.

None of the stars are bluer than F spectral class (with the exception of the 30 or so blue stragglers found in the cluster), and there is limited extinction from dust/soot, which makes it an excellent target for study, along with a similarly useful target in NGC188. 

The set of images taken here was also a first test for a new setup in being able to guide using a newly acquired TS OAG9 – this is a very low profile off axis guider and allows me to guide in front of the filters – while this isn’t always required, it makes holding a guide star much easier, especially for narrowband work where guiding with the guide chip in the camera can be nigh-on impossible! This setup allows me to guide using PHD2 and image using APT (with the advantage of having it’s own focus control and platesolving capabilities, as well as Astrotortilla being able to take images to make platesolving/mount alignment much easier). 

Images were taken on 15th and 20th March 2017 from West Oxfordshire, using the SBIG ST2000XM on a William Optics FLT110 working at |f5.7 with the FLAT4 reducer. Guiding was performed off-axis by my ASI120MM, controlled by PHD2. 

Exposures were:
R:G:B = 90:75:65 (all in 300sec subs). 

Reduction/Processing in Pixinsight and Photoshop CS4.

M67 – An Old Open Cluster by Graeme Coates is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.