Andrew Cooper
Oct 23, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 136x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 6 Moon: 25%

The collection of bright stars around χ1 For is striking in the eyepiece, a collection of bright blue-white stars in an otherwise sparse region of Fornax. The center of this region is made up of the bright trio of χ1 For, χ2 For, and χ3 For, plus several gravitationally bound companions.

While checking the binary status of the companions to χ1 For and χ3 For I realized that χ1, χ1, and χ3 For all share similar parallax in the Gaia DR2 data, and that numerous other stars in the area are also related... Is this a large sparse cluster? Yes.

A quick search shows that the group is recognized as a very nearby open cluster in the literature, if poorly studied. This is a very recent discovery with the paper being published last year. See The Nearby, Young, Chi1 Fornacis Cluster: Membership, Age, and an Extraordinary Ensemble of Dusty Debris Disks, Zuckerman, Klein, and Kastner, 2019, arXiv:1909.08764

Drawings, descriptions, and CCD photos are copyright Andrew Cooper unless otherwise noted, no usage without permission.

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