Side Trip - the NGC 3293 Open Star Cluster
12 Oct 2020FiveStringJeff
The NGC 3293 Open Star Cluster was an intriguing sight on my way to Eta Carinae, so I decided to fly over and see what kind of things I could find there. It was only about 250 ly to the reference system of V405 Carinae. This was one of several systems in this cluster with multiple brown dwarf stars orbiting the main Class B star. But even at tens of thousands of light seconds away, these Class Bs shone brightly.
There were two giants in this cluster. HP 91969 is a supergiant. This shot doesn't even begin to show how large it is....
... but this shot shows pretty well how blue it is.
The blue light from these stars bathed their systems and turned planets all sorts of interesting colors. HMCs that normally appeared gray now looked blue. Others turned pink! Gas giants transformed from red to purple.
My favorite find on this excursion was an HMC with four widely spaced rings. The starlight reflected off the planet and its rings were almost white.
I also found a couple more anemone sites. There were several systems in this cluster with biological activity, but I only visited a couple.
Now, on to the Eta Carina nebula!