Messier 50 - An Open Cluster in Monoceros
Updated: Jun 7, 2023
Messier 50 is an open cluster in Monoceros. It is not often photographed and is located not far from the more popular Rosette Nebula.
Object Designation: M50
Constellation: Monoceros
Object Type: Open Cluster
Distance: 2,870 light-years away
Magnitude: 5.9
Discovered in: 1772
The open cluster Messier 50 is made up of about 200 stars. It is bright but pretty loose so it is not possible to see it with the naked eye. In photographs, M50 lacks any exciting features and so is rarely imaged by the amateur astrophotography community.
Most of the stars in Messier 50 appear faint blue, with some bright orange members near the edges.
As you can see in the image on the left, the cluster pops up pretty nicely against the dark background but is not really dense. Some of the stars are really far from the center of the object.
Let's face it, M50 is not an exciting object to image, but it still deserves some love!
The image below is our result of M50. It is only one hour of total exposure and was taken from a Bortle 4 zone. Some type of very small nebula can be seen halfway between the cluster and the bottom right edge.
Messier 50 with the QHY600C
GEAR USED:
Camera: QHY600C
Telescope: Stellarvue SVX130
Mount: Paramount MyT
Guiding: ZWO ASI 290MM Mini
Accessories: Moonlite Nightcrawler focuser
Processing: PixInsight
ACQUISITION DETAILS:
Total Exposure Time: 1 hour
Exposure Time per frame: 30 seconds
Filters: N/A
Gain: 26
How to Locate Messier 50
M50 is located in the constellation Monoceros, about 3,000 light-years away from Earth.
It is very close to the brightest star in the sky, Sirius and so is pretty easy to find.
Although you may be able to pinpoint its location, it is not possible to see with the naked eye and is difficult to observe with a pair of binoculars. The fact that Sirius is so bright and so close does not help!
Processing Messier 50
Messier 50 was a very easy target to process. It is just a simple cluster with nothing special going on so there were no tricks used in PixInsight. It took barely 30 to 40 minutes to process from beginning to end.
Below is what a 30-second single shot of this object looks like, if you are interested in knowing!
I went through our beginner processing workflow to process this object as it is a simple cluster. To learn how I process images from start to finish, check out our processing workflow HERE.
Final Thoughts
Messier 50 is... an okay open cluster. Not going to lie, it is not the most exciting deep sky object out there, but we treat it with equal love and respect as all the other targets (mostly because we needed it for our Messier table)!
We chose not to make this image available as a print because it does not meet our quality standards, but check out the prints we have for other images HERE!
Have you captured Messier 50? Attach your image in the comments and let us know your acquisition details!
Clear Skies,
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Considering what poor M50 is near...all that flash-bang gaudy ionized gas, what's a poor open cluster to do?
Having to deal with the old farts and all that fancy metallicity, just how are the younger kids going to be seen?
It's like living in Key West on Pride Day with all that has been old metal muscle, wrinkles and all, on display!
@michealdean6153 Haha no deep sky object is "not exciting", you are 100% right! This one just lacks a bit of je ne sais quoi to compete with many other incredible objects out there 😃 And yes life is very, very likely in many of these clusters!
WTF? M50 NOT exciting? Are nuts? Look at all those stars and all that empty space between them! Even if it has many more stars than the 500 or so reported ( and how many are red or even brown dwarfs?), it's over 880 pc away. Humanity may never know the true extent of what is there.
Is that group gravitationally lock to any degree?
Could life or, dare I say it, civilization arise? With so many stars in less then 20 ly diameter volume, my mind boggles at the possibilities.
Yeah, I may be reaching, but at 67 some things are worth reaching for.
Piece.
And stay safe.