Monday, August 07, 2017

captured M18 (Halifax)

BGO also imaged Messier 18. A Messier catalogue object I wished to revisit. An open cluster in Sagittarius.

open cluster Messier 18 in luminance

Luminance only, 60 seconds subexposures, 10 stacked shots. FITS Liberator, Paint.NET. North is up; east is left.

An interesting compact cluster of stars in a Milky Way rich field. Top-left of centre makes me think of a flint arrowhead. Or an acorn shape.

I'm also intrigued by the somewhat darker patch at the bottom-right of the image.

Looks like there's lots of doubles in the area... I'll have to see what the WDS says. Nothing is noted in SkyTools.

I was expecting more of a gradient from the full Moon. It's pretty flat...

§

Wikipedia link: Messier 18.

No comments: