NGC 2516 (also known as Caldwell 96) is an open star cluster in the southern sky in the constellation Carina discovered by Abbe Lacaille in 1751-1752. It is also called Southern Beehive[1][2] or the Sprinter. This bright cluster itself is easily visible with the naked eye as a hazy patch, but is resolvable into stars using binoculars. It contains two 5th magnitude red giant stars and three main visual double stars: HJ 4027, HJ 4031 and I 29. A small telescope would be required to split the double stars, which are all pairs of 8-9 magnitude and 1-10 arcseconds separation. NGC 2516 and the recently discovered nearby star cluster Mamajek 2 in Ophiuchus have similar age and metallicity. Recently, kinematic evidence was presented by E. Jilinski and coauthors that suggests that these two stellar groups may have formed in the same star-forming complex some 135 million years ago.

Telescope: Planewave CDK17 (FR) f4.5
Mount: Astro Physics 1600GTO
Camera: QHY16200A/ Integral FW
Guider: Agena Starguide II / SBIG STi

L: 26×5 mins = 120 mins, R: 24×5 mins = 120 mins, G: 24×5 mins = 120 mins, B: 24×5 mins = 120 mins

Total Imaging Time: 8h 10m

Data Imaged remotely over 2 nights during March 2021.
Imaged from Observatorio El Sauce, Chile, in partnership with Fred Espenak.
Data acquisition & Processing by David Churchill.

None