September Challenge Object (OC) - M11 - Page 2

ving (David) · #21 10-09-2005, 12:16 PM

hang bout guvner! you aint eddie! watsit all bout then!
sorry bout that Mr. Eye

dhumpie · #22 15-09-2005, 01:20 PM

Wow all the nice reports and great sketches and images. This one seems to be the most popular MOC object

But it is a very nice and rich cluster...

Darren

ving (David) · #23 15-09-2005, 02:12 PM

do you see a duck darren?

CosMos (Rich) · #24 16-09-2005, 11:55 AM

The dark lanes are not a figment of the imagination. Sir John Herschel saw " a beautiful irregularly R cl 10' or 12' diam. The stars are all 11m except one = 9m whose place is taken. Examined with high magnifiers [I have often viewed it with 800 and even 1200]; it is broken into 5 or 6 distinct groups with rifts or cracks between them."

The overall shape of the cluster gave the appearance of a flock of ducks to Smyth " This object, which somewhat resembles a flight of wild ducks in shape, is a gathering of minute stars, with a prominent 8th-magnitude in the middle, and two following; but by all analogy these are decidedly between us and the cluster." So, no duck or ducks can be seen

Rich

dhumpie · #25 19-09-2005, 04:36 PM

Hey David,

I do see the triangle of migrating ducks when I look at it through less aperture (i.e. Orion 80ST low mag or 15x70 or 10x50's)and magnification. It resembles nothing like a flock of ducks when seen in my C6 at mags of above 100X. Too richly resolved....

Darren

ving (David) · #26 19-09-2005, 04:48 PM

fair enough, seems its my imagination thats running wild and not the ducks...

RapidEye · #27 23-09-2005, 10:21 PM

I made another pass at M11 the night before last with my 10" Dob.

I decided to run the power up a bit, and dropped my 10mm Pentax XW into the scope (125X). It really frames the cluster nicely at that power and makes the dark areas really DARK!

One thing I noticed that I hadn't caught before: to the east of the cluster, next to the bright star, there is a dark lane. Just east of that lane, is a very fine single file line of faint stars arainged into a V pattern as well. To me, that line looks more like the V of a duck flock than the rest of the cluster did.

In fact, the main section of the cluster appeared more like a hollowed out pentagram.

Both the dark area in the middle of the pentagram and in the lane between the single file line and the bright star had what appeared to be a faint misty, almost globular cluster that appears to be set in the background.

The more I study this cluster, the more I like it!

Too bad photos of it just don't look the same as it does visually