Open cluster
M52 (M52)
In Cassiopeia (Cas) • Magnitude 7.3 • 13 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with M52 pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A rich open cluster in Cassiopeia containing about 200 stars, with its brightest member sitting noticeably off-centre. That prominent yellow-orange star is actually a foreground object and not a real member of the cluster — it just happens to lie along the same line of sight.
M52 at a glance
| Catalog IDs | M52, N 7654 |
| Type | Open cluster |
| Constellation | Cassiopeia (Cas) |
| Right ascension | 23h 24m 11s |
| Declination | +61° 34' 48" |
| Apparent magnitude | 7.30 |
| Angular size | 13.0 × 13.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 73° |
| Best imaging months | Jun, Jul, Aug |
How to image M52
M52 sits in the constellation Cassiopeia at right ascension 23h 24m 11s and declination +61° 34' 48". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window.