The Butterfly Cluster, M6
This open cluster is a great binocular object in Scorpius. M6 is just north of M7, in the very low south during summer months in the northern hemisphere. It's visible naked-eye from decent suburban skies. You can see it is mostly made of hot young blue stars, but there's an orange giant near the top of the cluster. This is from the Spring 2014 Davis Mountains trip. TOA 130 telescope with reducer and QHY8 "color" CCD camera, 7 frames of 5 minutes each total exposure is 35 minutes. Check out M6 and M7 in the context of the Southern Milky Way here. Open cluster M7 is closeby.
Here's a much older shot for comparison. I believe that's part of NGC-6383 above right. Just before Midnight, 5/30/2005, Wimberly Texas. Effective frame size of a 1130mm lens considering the 1.5x magnification factor of my Nikon D100 Digital SLR (D-SLR) camera. Takahashi TOA 130 (5" APO refractor) With reducer, focal length is 754mm at f5.8
See other star clusters on Southern Star Clusters page.
See M6 in context on the Southern Milky Way page.
If you like clusters check out the links below for more....
Images Copyright © by Dick Locke. All Rights Reserved.
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