NGC 2343 is an open cluster in the Monoceros constellation located on the celestial equator. Its location makes it partly visible in both hemispheres during certain times of the year. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1785. According to Astronomy.com, there is a possibility of seeing some of the stars with the naked eye if the cluster is observed at a true dark site.

As part of a first year astronomy course at the University of Saskatchewan, I  studied NGC 2343 using the Skynet‘s Prompt5 and PROMPT-MO-1 telescopes on February 13th/14th 2023, with an exposure time of between 24 and 65 seconds depending on which colour band was being imaged. Fifteen images were collected in total, with five in each of the Blue, Violet, and Green bands of light. The images were then cleaned up using and combined using Afterglow and Cluster Pro Plus to create the colour image below.

The goal of the project was to investigate the relationships between colours, brightness, and the age and chemical compositions of stars in a cluster via the study of an individual cluster. My study of NGC 2343 resulted in observing a distance from Earth of 1.2 kiloparsecs with an error margin of 20%, imaging the cluster at a Right Ascension of 07:08:06.9 and a Declination of -10:37:08.3. Below is a graph showing more information, including an isochrone model and the metallicity of the cluster.

Through the process, I learned first that I enjoy the process of putting together a single-colour image and, second, that data analysis is harder than I expected, even with advanced tools like Cluster Pro Plus. Compared to official data provided by Kharchenko et al (2013), my findings were not quite as accurate to other information we know about the cluster. A second graph of the isochrone applied to their data is given below.

I also found that there were fewer stars in the cluster than I expected when I chose the cluster based on lower-quality images.

Overall, this cluster project provided exactly what I was hoping this class would be – a joyful highlight in the often dreary process of obtaining an undergraduate degree.