NGC 2414 is a young open star cluster that lies southwest of the M47 constellation. NGC 2414 is located about 11,000 light-years from earth, and all the way back in February of 1785, an astronomer by the name William Herschel discovered NGC 2414, he also had a knack for occasionally composing music. He is credited for discovering infrared radiation and was one on of the first “professional” astronomers, so I guess he was one of the first people to be paid for star gazing.

I was able to find multiple images of NGC 2414 through Skynet, and I found a beautiful display of the star cluster on Aladin Lite. It is quite a breathtaking cluster. With these images I was able to find a whole whack of measurements. It is has a distance of 3.54 kpc, now the average height for men is 1.77 meters, so NGC 2414 is roughly 61713551625599170000 men long. If someone wants to tell me exactly how to say that number that would be awesome. The proper motion in RA is -1.41 mas/yr and 1.426 mas/yr in Dec. There is 946 stars in this cluster which means it is in the correct range with how many stars it has, since most have open star clusters have tens to hundreds of stars. Lastly, it has a metallicity of -0.7, since it is negative that means that the star has a dismal amount of chemical elements.

Given that I have done nothing like this class in the past, there is most likely a higher chance of error than others. With that being said, there was nothing largely out of the ordinary with this star cluster. There were multiple blue stragglers in this cluster but I could not find any Nebula or Giants.

NGC 2414 may not be anything special to the most people, but it will be special for me. It was the first star cluster I studied, and I enjoy astronomy. I love space and looking at something that we have such little knowledge of. It is extraordinarily fascinating. Observing this star cluster has been a highlight that I will remember for many years.