ngc3532
Talk about a busy starfield!!!! This is a 60% crop of the original pic and even now, there are so many stars it's impossible to count them!!! Anyway, this is NGC3532, the Wishing Well, or, Football Cluster. It sits just above the centre of this pic and has an ovoid shape. The cluster lies in an extensive field of stars and nebulae associated with the nearby (in angular separation) Carina Nebula (NGC3372), which hosts the famous star, eta Carina. Lying at a distance of 1321ly (405pc), it's much closer than the nebula (7500ly). Though it's 150 members have an integrated brightness of 3 mag, the individual stars shine at around 7 mag, or fainter. The cluster contains 7 red giants and 7 white dwarfs. Taken with t68 at the Bathurst Observatory (BAT-iTelescope Network), 15 x 60sec subs.
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