Discover Caroline's Rose: NGC 7789 Stargazing on Jan 18

Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. January 17: Titan sits near Saturn New Moon occurs at 2:52 P.M. EST, leaving our skies dark and offering the perfect opportunity to enjoy deep-sky observing. Tonight our target is the open cluster NGC 7789. It is also called Caroline’s Rose for its discoverer, Caroline Herschel, who first spotted it in 1783. Shining at magnitude 6.7, you’ll find this young cluster of stars in the north near Caph (Beta [β] Cassiopeiae) in Cassiopeia the Queen. From 2nd-magnitude Caph, which appears closest to the ground in the upside-down M shape of the Queen around 9 P.M. local time tonight, NGC 7789 is a short jump to the lower left, about 2.9° south-southwest of Caph. Spanning about 16’ on the sky, NGC 7789 gets its common name from the way the stars within it appear to form loops in between areas of darkness, looking like the curving petals of a rose as viewed from, above. Although still young, these stars are more than 1 billion years old, making Caroline’s Rose one of the older open clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy.