The Jewel Box Cluster lies in the famous southern constellation Crux, and is named after the many beautiful colors of its stars. The brightest stars in this cluster are extremely luminous and emits more than 80,000 times the light of our own Sun. The cluster is around 10 million years old and lies at a distance of 7,500 light years.

OPTICS 10" Newtonian f/5.2
MOUNT Losmandy G11 equatorial
CAMERA Philips ToUCam Pro SC1 webcam
FILTERS None
EXPOSURE 48 x 21s
DATE/TIME 03/02/2006 12:21 UTC
LOCATION My backyard observatory in west Auckland, New Zealand