DeepSkyPedia

Messier 26 is an open cluster in Scutum.

It is a small cluster, with its brightest part having less then 5' in diameter. Four most brightest star shines at magnitudes between 9.2 and 11. Those 4 stars form the shape of kite. Total number of stars in the entire cluster (having 15' in diameter) is somewhere around 90. Except the 4 main stars, all other are dimmer than m=11.7. The cluster is unique for having a well-defined zone of low star density in a 3' diameter region, immediately surrounding the nucleus, inside the "diamond", propably due to dark interstellar matter obscuring this region.

You will need at least 4" telescope and power of 25x to see some more stars.

Using telescopes bigger than 10" might show up to 30 or 35 stars.

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