Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2880 mm fl) 0.643 arcsec / pixel.  Shown resampled to 1.28 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Filters

Acquisition Data

6/25/2009 to 7/14/2009  Chino Valley, AZ

Exposure

Lum    200 min (20 x 10 min, bin 1x1)

RGB    270 min (  9 x 10 min each, bin 1x1)

Software

CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin, Noel Carboni's actions.

CCDStack to register, normalize, data reject, combine sub exposures, pixel math and RGB combine.  eXcalibrator (beta) for color calibration using 49 stars from the NOMAD database.

PhotoShop for luminance processing and LRGB combine.

Comment

North is to the top.

M11 (NGC6705), the Wild Duck Cluster is an open cluster in the constellation Scutum. It was discovered in 1681 by the German astronomer Gottfried Kirch, of the Berlin Observatory, and is only 250 million years old. The clusters young age explains the high number of bluish-white stars. At a distance of about five thousand light years, the cluster contains about 2900 stars. The cluster gets its name because when viewed with a small telescope, a V shaped group of stars is dominate... reminding one of a formation of flying ducks.