Open Cluster in Cygnus
Many of the stars in this loose open
cluster seem to form chains and loops. When my son Tom was young, I showed him this cluster through the
telescope, and he said it looked like a four-leaf clover. I looked again and I could see the
clover shape, with the stem stretching to the east (to the left in this
picture) and four loops of stars forming the four leaves. The appearance of open clusters can
change quite a bit depending on the magnification used to view them, and
photographs look different from what is seen visually. The many background stars that are seen
in this photograph (which may be dim or invisible when looking through a
telescope) make the clover shape harder to discern.
Image details: 10 images, each 120 seconds at ISO 800,
taken with a Canon 400D camera through a Meade 12”
telescope at f/10.