Object: Messier 11	Camera: Meade DSI Pro II
Date: 8/15/2009	Location: Savoy, MA
Total Exposure: RGB - 10':15':15'	Subexposures: 1 minute each
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ-G	Guiding: PHD - Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Telescope: Officina Stellare 80mm APO refractor	Guide Scope: Orion Short Tube 80

Processing:

Nebulosity:
Dark frame calibration

Each color channel Aligned and Combined

Each of those sets aligned with each other

RGB color synthesis

Photoshop:

Curves and levels adjustments to taste

Slight softening of stars via Noel Carbonni's "Less Cruncy More Fuzzy Action"

Description:
Messier 11 - AKA The Wild Duck Cluster

Discovered 1681 by Gottfried Kirch.

Messier 11 (M11, NGC 6705) is "One of the richest and most compact of the galactic (open) clusters," to say it with Robert Burnham, Jr. M11 contains an estimated 2900 stars, about 500 of which are brighter than mag 14. An observer at the center of M11 would see several hundred first magnitude stars! So rich and dense, it was classified by Trumpler as II,2,r (some newer classifications have it as I,2,r).