This spectacular star cluster is located in the constellaton Centaurus and is about 15,800 light-years from Earth and contains several million stars. It is about 12 billion years old.
Details -
Early morning of 2011-03-02 at La Ensenada lodge, Costa Rica.
Very clear night with excellent seeing, 25 deg C, no wind.
Astrotrac mounted f/6 80mm Orion refractor with Canon T1i camera.
Exposure - 143 light and 40 dark frames at ISO 400 for 30s each.
Processing in Images Plus and Photoshop.