Astrophotos

Location: Mount Pinos, CA
Date: July 12, 2002
Subject: Wild Duck Cluster in Scutum and surrounding star field
Exposure: Single 40-min. exposures adjusted in Adobe Photoshop
Telescope: Megrez 80mm @ f/5
Mount: Losmandy GM-8
Guiding: ST-4 autoguider
Film: Fuji Super HQ 100
Comments: M11 the Wild Duck Cluster in Scutum is a spectacular site in even small telescopes. One of the richest and most compact open clusters in the sky, it is fairly easy to see naked eye at mag 5.8 and can easily be mistaken for a globular cluster in wide field scopes or at low power. The name "Wild Duck Cluster" refers to a v-shaped line of stars running along to eastern and southern edges. Some of these stars are visible in the photo. Other objects include NGC 6704 almost directly above M11 and many dark nebulae including LDN's 534, 527, and 512 (there are too many to name all of them). This photo suffers from very slight differential flexure, barley visible at this resolution, a problem that has been plaguing my photos for the past few months.