NGC 6520 & Barnard 86 (Gary Imm)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Sagittarius (Sgr) · Contains: B86 · NGC 6520

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NGC 6520 & Barnard 86

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NGC 6520 & Barnard 86

This image captures an open cluster and a dark nebula, both located in a dusty dense starfield in the southern constellation of Sagittarius. Despite its low declination at almost -30 degrees, I am happy with the clarity of the image.

NGC 6520 is an open cluster with an apparent diameter of 3 arc-minutes . The cluster is located 6000 light years away and spans 10 light years. I count about 100 stars, but a scientific study has identified over 50,000 stars in this cluster.

Barnard 86 is the dark nebula below the cluster. As with many dark nebula, it is difficult to accurately determine its distance. One paper came to the conclusion that the nebula is the same distance as the cluster because visually the two objects still seem to be attached, with the assumption that the stars were formed from this cloud. That seems possible but not necessarily definite to me.

I love the dense starfield in this region of the sky towards the bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy, and that the stars and dust are so dense that no background dark sky can be seen.

The refractors!
Cloudy Nights
ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M
Dark Nebula
Open Star Clusters

Barnard Catalog (140/369)
Dark Nebulae
Hidden Treasures Catalog (Complete*)
Open Clusters

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2676452
PixInsight job	1P3KTZ28V4A0L9VZZ9DFJQEWN8KR274G
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	18h03m11s.580
RA (top/left)	18h03m52s.235
RA (top/right)	18h04m37s.378
RA (bottom/right)	18h02m30s.370
RA (bottom/left)	18h01m44s.453

Dec (center)	-27°52′38″.80
Dec (top/left)	-28°14′36″.94
Dec (top/right)	-27°38′28″.38
Dec (bottom/right)	-27°30′35″.50
Dec (bottom/left)	-28°06′42″.78

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NGC 6520 & Barnard 86

NGC 6520 & Barnard 86

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NGC 6520 & Barnard 86

NGC 6520 & Barnard 86

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