Canon 30D Unmodified
15x180sec at iso 1600
30 Darks/Flats/Bias
Orion ED80 with WO 0.8 reducer/flattenerSome say this cluster is shaped like an arrowhead. Seems appropriate for an object in the constellation Sagitta.
M71 is at a distance of about 12,000 light years away from Earth and spans some 27 light years across. The irregular variable star Z Sagittae is a member of this cluster.
M71 was long thought (until the 1970's) to be a densely packed open cluster and was classified as such by leading astronomers in the field of star cluster research due to its lacking a dense central compression , its stars having more "metals" than is usual for an ancient globular cluster, and further its lacking the RR Lyrae "cluster" variable stars that are common in most globulars. However, modern photometric photometry has detected a short "horizontal branch" in the H-R diagram of M71, which is characteristic of a globular cluster. The shortness of the branch explains the lacking of the RR Lyrae variables and is due to the globular's relatively young age of 9-10 billion years. The relative youth of this globular also explains the abundance of "metals" in its stars. Hence today, M71 is designated as a very loosely concentrated globular cluster, much like M68 in Hydra. M71 has a luminosity of around 13,200 suns.(From Wikipedia)
Loose open cluster Harvard 20 can be seen below M71.
