M-71 has been classed separately as a globular and an open cluster. To date I am not sure which it really is. Shaped like a giant comma, it has the fuzziness and sprinkling of stars of a globular, but it has the unspherical shape of an open. Is it a distant, dense open? Or a broken, dented globular? My own guess was that it is an open in front of a globular. In any case, M-71 is a small, beautiful punctuation mark in the sky.
| NGC: | 6838 |
| OTHER NAMES: | M-71 |
| CLASS: | globular or open cluster |
| SIZE: | 6.1' |
| MAGNITUDE: | +9 |
| DISTANCE: | 17,900 light years |
| POSITION: | 19h 53m -18d 36' |
| CONSTELLATION: | Sagitta |
| DATE OF SKETCH: | 10/03/75 |
| MAGNIFICATION USED: | 140x |
