images

Open cluster M7 in Scorpius

by

Tom Davis/Novapix

Reference

a-aou64-75003

Date

2010-04-23

This cluster is roughly 780 light years from Earth. Its stars are about 220 million year-old. Dark clouds of opaque dust lay between us and the stars of the galactic central bulge. These appear to us as dark clouds against a prodigiously starry background. Many of these dark nebulae were imaged and cataloged by E. E. Barnard. This image contains Barnard 283, 286-7.