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This highly dense star field does
not appear rich at all when viewing with binoculars or small
telescopes. However, it is a photographic treasure far exceeding
expectations for sheer numbers of stars recorded. Surrounding
this splashy open cluster is the Milky Way background stars,
along with filamentary dark nebula, planetary nebula and globular
clusters. Now lets get onto some of the details in this image.
North is to the left here.
Lets start with the star
of this field, the open cluster M7. Blazing at an integrated
magnitude of 3.3, this roughly 80 arcminute object is a class
I3r cluster, with a bright orange K3 star the 5.6 magnitude SAO
209416 on its upper right corner. Down to its lower right is
the small open cluster CR355, an 8.8 magnitude splash of stars
10 arcminutes in size. Just above M7 is a yellow globular cluster
NGC6453. This 10.2 magnitude object is only 8 arcminutes in diameter
and contains stars down to 18th mangitude, with the typical star
at about 14.3 magnitude.
Numerous dark nebula also
fill the field, and a large number of ESO planetary nebula, most
very tiny fill this frame between the stars.
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