Also known as Brocchi's Cluster, this is in fact a chance alignment of stars, ranging from 238 to 2237 lightyears in distance. The brightest stars are only of 5th magnitude, so not that far above the limit of naked-eye visibility, but the asterism is well-seen with binoculars.
This is just one of the many patterns of stars seen across the night sky, the result of humans attempting to derive meaning from chance configurations. The classical asterisms are of course the contellations, many dating from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians.
This is an LRGB image resulting from 1h 20m of data capture with a Moravian G4-16000 camera through a Takahashi TOA-150 refractor, from a remote observatory in Spain.
Date: 29/10/2020
Photographer: Graham Wilcock
