🔭 M11 — Wild Duck Cluster

Open cluster in Scutum

M11, Wild Duck Cluster is a open cluster in the constellation Scutum, with an apparent magnitude of about 5.8, roughly 6.2 thousand light-years away.

Data

Catalogue designation	M11
Common name	Wild Duck Cluster
Object type	Open cluster
Constellation	Scutum
NGC / IC	NGC 6705
Apparent magnitude	5.8
Distance (approx.)	6.2 thousand light-years

What a open cluster is

A loose, young family of a few dozen to a few thousand stars born together from the same gas cloud and drifting apart over time. The Pleiades are the most famous example.

Other Messier objects in Scutum: M26.

Data: Messier catalogue & IAU constellations, via English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0) · stored statically.