The Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile provides a gorgeous view of NGC 3293, a compact cluster of young stars in the constellation Carina that was born 10 million years ago in a fertile nursery of gas and dust near the Eta Carina nebula complex. Similar in age to the more famous Jewel Box cluster, NGC 3293, aka the Gem, was discovered in 1752 by Abbe Nicholas Louis de la Callé. In the second edition of Astronomical Objects for Southern Telescopes (AOST2), David Frew describes the Gem cluster as “reminiscent of the Jewel Box, containing a bright red supergiant which contrasts nicely with the other cluster members. It is a fine object in even the smallest telescopes.”
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Some of the Milky Way’s “celebrity stars” — opulent, attention-getting, and short-lived — can be found in this Hubble Space Telescope image of the glittering star cluster called Trumpler 14. It is only 500,000 years old, has one of the highest concentrations of massive, luminous stars in the entire Galaxy and is located 8,000 light-years away in the Carina Nebula.