The Butterfly Cluster - M6
Open cluster in Scorpius

 

            
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 Resembling
            that four winged hexapod which pollinates our flowers, the Butterfly
            Cluster M6 is a huge and bright splashy cluster with brilliant
            blue super giants and a few orange giant K type stars in the
            mix. Centered in this image, M6 is 4.2nd magnitude and spans
            just over half a degree wide, the same apparent width as the
            full moon appears to our eyes. 80 stars are listed as cluster
            members in Megastar. The very obvious K3 super giant star on
            its north end (up) in this 2.5 degree field is 6th magnitude
            and is just visible to the naked eye on a very dark night.

            
The small dark
            patch of nebulosity to the clusters lower right is Barnard 275
            and the general lack of stars on its left is Barnard 278.

Optics:  8" f/4 Newtonian Astrograph w/Baader MPCC Coma Corrector
Platform:  Astrophysics AP1200  
Camera:  Hutech Modified Canon XTi @ ISO800
Exposure:  3 x 5m
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  4/10, Transparency 7/10
Outside Temperature:  75F
Processing Tools:  Photoshop CS2, Images Plus 3.82
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