This is Messier 29, an open cluster in Cygnus. The Earth's location in the galaxy is in the 'Orion-Cygnus' arm of the Milky Way, so looking at Cygnus is looking through a densely star-populated region of space towards the galactic center. And it's not just stars; that red cast to the image is real - it's a space full of hydrogen glowing with the red H-Alpha radiation. Most of the stars are in front of it - it's a big nebula!

Open clusters are families of stars born at around the same time from the same patch of dust and gas. The stars are similar in age and color, they tend to be young and hot, and they are short lived.

Well, that's the theory. It's pretty convincing, and as such open clusters are little studied by professional astronomers, who prefer more dramatic stuff. The objects don't even make great photographs. As result, I can't even say which specific stars in this photograph are cluster members - and neither can anyone else. The cluster might be 11 light years across, but it depends on which stars you pick for the cluster. It's between 4000 and 7200 light years away, which is a pretty broad range for a cluster thought to be just 10 million years old. It might consist of 20 stars, or it might be 50. It might be thousands!

I guess there's no pressing need to map it until Star Fleet hits the rocks in that bit of space.