Surrounding the brighter stars on the group are regions of
nebulosity. These are vast clouds of very low-density glowing gas in which it is thought new
stars are being formed.
Photographic details:
The first photograph was
taken using an unguided 50mm Pentax lens and a five second exposure. It shows a wide-
angle location image of the cluster.
A single star in the cluster has been circled to
enable identification on the other two photographs.
The second photograph
was taken using an unguided 200mm Pentax lens and an exposure of 2s. At this length of
exposure the nebulosity surrounding the brighter stars in the group is not really
noticeable.
Since it was unguided a longer exposure would have given unacceptable
blurring of the image.
The third image was taken using a guided 300mm
Newtonian (f/4) reflector and a 5s exposure.
All photographs were taken using an
MX716 CCD camera. The initial images in all photographs were processed using the
camera's computer software.
The Moon is shown in the first image to give an idea of
scale.