NGC 7243

charts

Urania’s Mirror (Wikipedia) Urania’s Mirror; or, a view of the Heavens is a set of 32 astronomical star chart cards, first published in November 1824. They are illustrations based on Alexander Jamieson’s A Celestial Atlas, but the addition of holes punched in them allow them to be held up to a light to see a depiction of the constellation’s stars. They were engraved by Sidney Hall, and were said to be designed by “a lady”, but have since been identified as the work of the Reverend Richard Rouse Bloxam, an assistant master at Rugby School.

NGC 7243 (Wikipedia) NGC 7243 (also known as Caldwell 16) is an open cluster and Caldwell object in the constellation Lacerta. It shines at magnitude +6.4. Its celestial coordinates are RA 22h 15.3m , dec +49° 53′. It is located near the naked-eye stars Alpha Lacertae, 4 Lacertae, an A-class double star, and planetary nebula IC 5217. It lies approximately 2,800 light-years away, and is thought to be just over 100 million years old, consisting mainly of white and blue stars.