NGC 884 and 869 (The Double Cluster)

Constellation: Perseus

Distance: 7500 Light Years

A famous and magnificent target for small telescopes, the Double Cluster is also clearly visible as a naked eye object from reasonably dark skies midway between the constellations Cassiopeia and Perseus. The two remarkable similar clusters, each containing about 300 young bright stars, are only a few hundred light-years apart and are believed to have originated from the same ancestral cloud of gas and dust about 13 million years ago. Most of the stars are young bright type O and B stars shining blue and white, but some, particularly in NGC 884 (to the right of this image), have burned through their hydrogen fuel and have evolved into red giants.