NGC 1857 is a small open cluster in Auriga about 18,700 light-years
distant according to WEBDA. It is an original Herschel 400 object which
put it on my to-do list when nothing better was in position. In this
case weather was poor and star clusters cut through haze. My notes from
1985 indicate it reminded me of NGC 2362 around Tau Canis Majoris.
However, unlike Tau the bright orange star I was referring to is not
likely a member of the cluster. Hipparcos puts the star at only 1500
light-years, far closer than the cluster. The cluster's age is listed
by WEBDA at 133 million years, certainly old enough to harbor a massive
red giant. That star is SAO 57903, a K5 or K7 star depending on which
reference I look at. The cluster is reddened by about 0.49 magnitude
according to WEBDA. I don't know if the other orange stars are cluster
members or not.

Due to the losses from the thick haze the less than a dozen galaxies in
the full frame didn't show very well and my efforts to reduce the glare
around the stars due to the clouds further dimmed them. All were from
the 2MASS and none had even a magnitude let alone a distance estimate.
Therefore I didn't prepare an annotated version for this field.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick
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Prefix is correct. Domain is arvig dot net

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