The Broken Heart Cluster, or NGC 2281, is an open cluster of stars in the northern constellation of Auriga.  It is about 1,700 light years from the Sun and is around 600 million years old. At magnitude 5.4, it can be seen by naked eye under a very dark sky.

Broken Heart Cluster

North (toward Polaris) is up in the photo. The picture was taken with a fully modified Canon Rebel camera (this is my one shot color camera) on a TEC 140 telescope in the Alpenglow-Torrey House Observatory in the dark sky community of Torrey, Utah (Bortle 2-3).

The best 10 of 14 20 second sub-frames were used and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker = three minute 20 second photo. Unguided, unbinned, no darks or flats. Processed in Photoshop (CS5).

Location in the night sky of the photo: