NGC 188, Caldwell 1

NGC188 is an open star cluster in the constellation Cepheus. With a membership of around 120, it may be the oldest known open cluster, although age estimates have varied from as much as 24 billion years (which some may notice is a bit of an anomaly when compared to the current estimates of the age of the Universe), to as `little' as only five billion years. NGC188 was first noticed by John Herschel before 1833. NGC188's most recent claim to fame is as item number 1 in Patrick Moore's Caldwell list of challenging objects for observers bored with the Messier catalogue. This image was taken with the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory on the night of December 19th 2002 UT. Image size 21.5 arc minutes.