https://www.sciencedowneast.com/zenphoto Sat, 08 Aug 2026 05:27:23 -0300 Sat, 08 Aug 2026 05:27:23 -0300 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Zenphoto RSS Generator https://www.sciencedowneast.com/zenphoto/index.php?album=Clusters/M11-Wild-Duck-Cluster&image=M+11_IRCUT1_ADBE_MAS.jpg Click on the image to view it at full resolution, then click again for actual size.

Messier 11 (NGC 6705), the Wild Duck Cluster, is a rich open star cluster in the constellation Scutum, lying about 6,100 light-years away, making it one of the most distant open clusters in the Messier catalog still visible to the naked eye. It is unusually dense and populous for an open cluster, containing roughly 2,900 stars and estimated to be about 316 million years old. Its brighter stars form a distinctive V- or wedge-shaped pattern in small telescopes, resembling a flock of ducks in flight, which gives the cluster its common name. Set against the rich star fields of the Scutum Star Cloud, M11 makes an excellent broadband target, with tight, colorful stars standing out sharply against the dense Milky Way backdrop.

[Source: Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Duck_Cluster]

Moon Phase	Waning Crescent
Camera	Seestar S30 Pro (4K Sony IMX585 sensor)
Optics	160 mm focal length, f/5.3, 30 mm aperture (APO quadruplet)
Date	2026-07-09
PixInsight Processing	Drizzle Integration (x2) Channel Combination (x2) Background Neutralization Dynamic Background Extraction Spectrophotometric Color Calibration NoiseXTerminator (AI denoise) Multiscale Adaptive Stretch Multiscale Linear Transform

Date: July 28, 2026 ]]> https://www.sciencedowneast.com/zenphoto/index.php?album=Clusters/M11-Wild-Duck-Cluster&image=M+11_IRCUT1_ADBE_MAS.jpg Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0300