- Constellation: Scorpius
- Right Ascension: 17h 40.1m
- Declination: −32° 13′
- Distance: 1,600 ly
An open cluster located Scorpius. The name derives from Robert Burnham's description that it resembles an outline of a butterfly with open wings. The cluster is estimated to contain up to 300 members, and its age is 50 to 100 million years old. Like most open clusters, the stars will disperse over millions of years and become more background stars in Scorpius.
- Details
- Category: Open Clusters
- Telescope: EDT 80mm Reftactor
- Camera: ZWO A071 Color
- Constellation: Scutum
- Right Ascension: 18h 51m 05.0s
- Declination: −06° 16′ 12″
- Distance: 6,120 ly
M11 is an open cluster located in the constellation of Scutum. The name comes from a v shape from the brighter stars that resemble a flock of ducks. One of the densest and most compact open clusters known. It contains around 2,900 members and an estimated 220 million years old. The backdrop is from the Milky Way Galaxy near the Scutum Star Cloud.
- Details
- Category: Open Clusters
- Telescope: Explore Scientific 127 Refractor
- Camera: ZWO 1600 MM
- Constellation: Auriga
- Right Ascension: 06h 48m 17.0s
- Declination: +41° 04′ 4"
- Distance: 1,819 ly
NGC2281 Open cluster located in Auriga, located some 1,819 light years away with an estimated age of 610 million years. Es127/Zwo1600 scope/camera setup.
- Details
- Category: Open Clusters
- Telescope: Explore Scientific 127 Refractor
- Camera: ZWO 1600 MM
- Constellation: Sagittarius
- Right Ascension: 18h 17m
- Declination: −18° 29′
- Distance: 10,000 ly
Messier 24, one of the Messier objects that isn't a singular deep sky object, it is a dense concentration of stars located in the Sagittarius arm of our Milky Way Galaxy, hence it is often referred to the as the Sagittarius Star Cloud. A collection of millions of stars that can be seen through a gap of the Milky Way dust lanes. Also visible is NGC 6603 an open cluster located in the field of view, and various dark nebula that blot out background stars.
- Details
- Category: Open Clusters
- Telescope: EDT 80mm Reftactor
- Camera: ZWO A071 Color
- Constellation: Cancer
- Right Ascension: 08h 40.4m
- Declination: 19° 59′
- Distance: 577 ly
Messier 44, or sometimes called the Beehive, is a open cluster located in the constellation of Cancer. At around 600 light years away, it is one of the closest open clusters to us along with the Pleiades and Hyades. M44 shares a common proper motion with the Hyades which suggests a common origin, and both have estimated age of around 600 million years. The cluster contains more than 1,000 stars with many of them being red dwarfs (68%).
- Details
- Category: Open Clusters
- Telescope: EDT 80mm Reftactor
- Camera: ZWO A071 Color
- Constellation: Gemini
- Right Ascension: 07 27 12
- Declination: +13 36 30
- Distance: 1,600 ly
NGC 2395 A loose scattered open cluster located in Gemini about 1600 light years away.
- Details
- Category: Open Clusters
- Telescope: Explore Scientific 127 Refractor
- Camera: ZWO 1600 MM