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  • Australian Sky & Telescope

    Behind the shield

    Jun 09, 2021 4 minutes
    by Ken Hewitt-White

    GOOD THINGS COME in small packages. Tiny Scutum, the Shield, hosts the Scutum Star Cloud, a glittering condensation in the winter Milky Way. Unfortunately, the Shield can’t block light pollution. Viewed from my suburban backyard with lots of city lights in surrounding suburbs, the sky is not always the best.

    Yet I attacked the constellation and its famous Star Cloud anyway. For weapons, I chose my 120-mm f/7.5 apochromatic refractor on a Go To equatorial mount, and my 25-cm f/6 Dobsonian. The Go To mount works perfectly well, but I don’t mind aiming the Dob manually. Its 6x30 finderscope was all I needed for a successful Scutum star-hop.

    Wild ducks

    Occupying the northeast corner. Two centuries ago, retired British admiral (and astronomer) William Smyth wrote that it “somewhat resembles a flight of wild ducks”. Hence the evocative nickname, Wild Duck Cluster.

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