NGC 654
Fuzzy Butterfly Cluster in Cassiopeia

10.1″ f/4.5, Mallincam DS432cTEC with Astronomik UHC filter
Exposure = 2.6 sec, Live Stacked frames = 30, Gain = 72 of 250

A pretty little cluster that stands out well against the background sky with a wedge-shaped core of densely-packed stars and a bright magnitude 7.3 yellow supergiant on the south-east corner. The cluster is relatively far, over 7800 light years away in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way. North and east of the cluster runs a dark “river” of dust that appears in long-exposure photographs.

North at 9 o’clock, East at 6 o’clock