M71 - 18/08/2010

This is an image I took of M71, which is a loose globular cluster at a distance of around 13,000 light years in the constellation of Sagitta. Not a particularly fine example of a globular cluster but, lying in the middle of the Milky Way, it has a very rich backdrop of stars. It's a stack of 8 30second exposures with flats and darks, processed using GIMP. I would have stacked more frames but a slow moving faint satellite, which I only spotted later, ran straight across the shot over the period of about 8 frames!

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