Astronomy Digital Picture – 16 seconds, ISO 400, 23.1mm f/3.2, on 26 Aug 2006 9:34PM, Bangalore.
11 Jan 2007
At the Scorpio’s Tail on a background of numerous faint and distant Milky Way stars, two star clusters easily visible to binocular and naked eye. Open clusters are group of stars less densely packed and easily resolved to individual stars.
M7(middle left) is one of the most prominent open clusters of stars on the sky, it has about 100 stars formed around 200 million years ago. it lies about 1000 light-years away from us. M7 is dominated by bright blue stars of magnitude 6 and fainter arranged in a cruciform shape. M7 was known to Ptolemy as early as the year 130 AD.
Another open star cluster M6(middle right), is also known as the Butterfly Cluster, stars arrangement looks like the outline of a butterfly with open wings. (shape not seen in picture above) it contains over 50 stars located at approximately 1600 light-years from us.
Tomorrow’s picture – Asia’s Largest Optical Telescope
Posted by naveenln 
Astronomy Digital Picture of the Day 