NGC 225 is an open star cluster lying 2.200 light-years from Earth in Cassiopeia. I nicknamed this cluster “The Sailboat Cluster” in an article in Astronomy magazine in the 1990s and the name has stuck. However, many people who post image of this cluster on the internet state they don’t see the sailboat, so I will describe it here. The arc of 4 bright blue stars forms a billowing sail. A fifth bright star off to the left of the bottom of the sail forms a boom for the sail Below the arc, there is an ellipse of blue and orange stars that form the hull of the sailboat. A bright star above the ellipse forms the mast extending up to the blue arc of the sail. The blue reflection nebula to the right of the sailboat is van den Berg (vDB) 4, also known as Lynds Bright Nebula (LBN) 604.

Exposures: L:R:G:B = 210:100:100:100 minutes = 8 hours, 30 minutes total exposure, completely unguided.