At a distance of approximately 8,000 light years, M103 is one of the farthest open clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy. The cluster contains about 40 stars with some catalogs identifying as many as 172 stars. The garnet star in the center of the cluster is a red giant.

In this image, North is up. This image is cropped to 56% of the original full frame.

Exposure Details
Lens	Celestron C-8 SCT with Celestron focal reducer
Focal Length	1160mm
Focal Ratio	f/5.8
Mount	Schaefer GEM - 7 1/2 Byers gear
Guiding	ONAG On-Axis Guider, Lodestar autoguider, PHD Guiding
Camera	Canon 450D - Gary Honis modified
Exposure	88 subexposures of 180 seconds each at ISO 100 - about 4 1/2 hours total
Calibration	30 darks, 30 flats, 30 bias
Date	September 30, 2012
Temperature	63F
SQM Reading	18.9 (Bortle 6 - Moon was Full)
Seeing	1/5
Location	Pine Mountain Club, California
Software Used	Images Plus 4.5 for camera control, calibration, stacking, digital development, multiresolution sharpening, smoothing and noise reduction. Registar used for stack alignment. Photoshop CS5 used for levels and curves, color correction, selective color, match color, star shrinking, lab color, and saturation adjustments. Gradient Xterminator for gradient removal. Carboni Tools for additional saturation adjustments, noise reduction, and smoothing. HLVG for additional color correction.
Notes	The seeing was horrible the evening I captured this image, and the Moon was Full. As such, this isn't an impressive photo. Nonetheless, the cluster has some beautifully colored stars, and at least I was able to add one more object towards a complete Messier catalog!