Sagittarius Star Cloud (M24)

Object Type: Star Cloud
Scope: APO 80mm; Exposure 63 minutes.

The Sagittarius Star Cloud (Messier 24, IC 4715) is not a true star cluster but a dense, glittering patch of Milky Way stars in Sagittarius, essentially a window through the intervening dust into a distant spiral arm. Discovered by Charles Messier in 1764, it spans about 600 light-years and lets us see stars 10,000 to 16,000 light-years away. Messier described it as a 'large nebulosity containing many stars.'