Looking like diamonds in the sky, this lovely astrophoto shows Ptolemy’s Cluster, or Messier 7, a very bright open star cluster easily visible with the naked eye near the tail of Scorpius. Taken by photographer Rolf Wahl Olsen — Sky Viking on Flickr — this beautiful, glittering cluster is about 980 light years away from Earth and has some 80 member stars within its diameter of about 25 light years. Astronomers have determined these young, bright stars are approximately 200 million years old.
The cluster is visible as a hazy patch in the sky, and was first described by the ancient astronomer Ptolemy in 130 AD.
Rolf said this image was taken with a bright 78% illuminated Moon nearby.
Image details:
Date: 31st May 2012
Exposure: LRGB: 48:24:24:24m, total 2hrs @ -28C
Telescope: 10″ Serrurier Truss Newtonian f/5
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Taken from Sky Viking’s observatory in Auckland, New Zealand
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
The gravitational wave background was first detected in 2016. It was announced following the release…
The giant outer planets haven’t always been in their current position. Uranus and Neptune for…
The hunt for extrasolar planets has revealed some truly interesting candidates, not the least of…
How did complex life emerge and evolve on the Earth and what does this mean…
In a world that seems to be switching focus from the Hubble Space Telescope to…
The world was much different in 1990 when NASA astronauts removed the Hubble Space Telescope…