September 9, 2008

M11 from Huntsville

This is M11. It is often called the Wild Duck Cluster, presumably because it looks like a flock of ducks moving south (or north). It never looked like that to me, but it is a wonderful sight in a telescope. I remember finding it in my Astroscan when I was about thirteen. It was beautiful, and I just stopped and stared at it for a long time, then went back to it often.
This image does not quite do it justice, but then it is only 22x15", or 5.5 minutes worth of exposures, just enough to put it in the XTi through the 66ED. I only had to discard one exposure.

[Below is another iteration of the same data, changed a bit in PSE7:]

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