M7 open cluster in Scorpius

Large and brilliant open cluster containing some 80+ stars. The distance to this cluster is about 820 light years and its age is about 260 million years. The cluster contains several visual and binary double stars.

M7 is near the tail of the scorpion and was probably known in antiquity. Its overall magnitude is 3.3 and its size is 80' x 80'.

Images taken with Televue NP-101 Telescope mounted on Losmandy G11 mount. Camera used was a Nikon CP5700 used in an afocal mode with a Maxview II eyepiece.

Three 1 minute exposures dark compensated, aligned and stacked, background removed and Digitaly Developed in ImagesPlus 1.72.