M 6 The Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius in RGB (Ian Parr)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Scorpius (Sco) · Contains: Butterfly Cluster · M 6 · NGC 6405

M 6 The Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius in RGB, Ian Parr

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M 6 The Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius in RGB

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M 6 The Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius in RGB

This bright cluster and the much larger nearby M7 are easily visible markers adjacent to the tail of the Scorpion before the core of the milky way brightens the night sky.

Most of the bright stars in this cluster are hot, blue B-type stars but the brightest member is a K-type orange giant star.

I have observed and shown this object to visitors many times through the 16" F7 at Crago Observatory on Bowen Mountain near Sydney.

It was at a time when any passing clouds were ink plots against the stars.

Now the cloud bottoms are illuminated by light pollution that has exploded over the last decade.

And bright satellites stab at my images.

Times change.

The Butterfly Cluster Messier 6 (NGC 6405) is an open cluster of stars in the southern constellation of Scorpius whose name derives from the vague resemblance of its shape to a butterfly.
It about 1,590 light years distant and has visual magnitude 4.2 and is around 94 million years old.

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8267253
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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M 6 The Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius in RGB

M 6 The Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius in RGB

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M 6 The Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius in RGB

M 6 The Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius in RGB

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