Instrument

12.5" RCOS @ ~ f/9 (2880 mm fl) at 0.64 arcsec/pixel. Shown at  0.85 and 1.28 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ FW8 filter wheel & AstroDon Gen-2 LRGB filters.

Acquisition Data

11/14/2015 to 11/23/2015 Chino Valley, AZ.  with CCD Commander & CCDSoft.  AOL guided

Exposure

eXcalibrator RGB ratios are 1.00, 1.02 & 1.09

Software & Processing Notes

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, PixInsight, Photoshop CS6.

• eXcalibrator v5.0 for (g:r) color balancing, using 71 stars from the APASS database.

• CCDBand-Aid to repair KAI-11000M vertical bars.

• CCDStack to calibrate, data reject and combine the sub exposures, create the RGB image and to apply a mild Positive Constraint deconvolution.

• PixInsight for gradient removal, non-linear stretching with HistogramTransformation.

• PhotoShop for the final touch-up.

Comment

The cluster is shown rotated 25° clockwise.

NGC 7419 is a young open star cluster, in the constellation Cepheus, at a distance of 7,500 to 11,000 light years. The cluster's age is from 10 to 15 million years. Its location, behind dark nebulae and molecular clouds, heavily reddens the color. Although NGC 7419 is dominated by blue stars, the foreground galactic extinction almost completely block the blue light.

The enigmatic open cluster NGC 7419
by
Amparo Marco & Ignacio Negueruela

Abstract:
We determine the distance and the age of the open cluster NGC 7419 using accurate photometry and spectroscopy. We analyze spectra for a great number of members; concluding that NGC 7419 has one of the highest Be fractions among Galactic open clusters. We also confirm that the cluster contains five red supergiants but there are no blue supergiants. Both effects may be related to fast rotation, but high Be content and high RSG content do not always go together.

Here is a PDF about Be stars by Carla Morton