Burnham’s Celestial Handbook
- Alpine Lakes Wilderness (historylink.org)
The Alpine Lakes Wilderness covers more than 414,000 acres within the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Okanogan-Wenatchee national forests in the northern Cascade Range of Washington. The wilderness includes parts of Chelan, Kittitas, and King counties. It is bordered by Snoqualmie Pass to the south, by the town of Leavenworth to the east, and by Stevens Pass to the north. The Alpine Lakes Wilderness got its name from its more than 600 ponds and lakes, which offer scenic grandeur and abundant water. The wilderness was created in 1976 by President Gerald Ford and expanded in 2014 by President Barack Obama. Most challenging for its future sustainability, it lies only an hour or two from the heart of Seattle.
- How to find and observe the Double Cluster (TOTS#5) (eyesonthesky.com)
NGC 869 and NGC 884 are two open cluster within our own Milky Way galaxy that are very close to each other, creating a “dual” cluster for telescope observers. The two clusters are each about 7,500 light years from Earth, so the photons from it reaching your eye in a telescope left that cluster about the time copper was being used in the Middle East. The estimated age is about 12.8 million years, making it one of the younger star clusters in our galaxy. Here is a detailed guide on how to locate the Double Cluster.
- NGC 869 (Wikipedia)
NGC 869 (also known as h Persei) is an open cluster located 7460 light years away in the constellation of Perseus. The cluster is about 14 million years old. It is the westernmost of the Double Cluster with NGC 884.
