In fact, it appears that NGC 6712 crossed the Galactic plane just a few million years ago. The image to the left shows the five fields that were extensively observed with the VLT Test Camera on 23 August 1998, within the VLT UT1 Science Verification Programme. It shows this globular cluster in a rich stellar field, just south of the galactic plane. Each of the five VLT fields measures about 1.5 arcmin on a side, or about 10 light-years at the distance of the cluster. The Schmidt field, in which the outline of the VLT fields is indicated, covers about 12 x 12 square arcmin.
North is up and East is left.
Most of them lasted 15 min and the CCD frames cover the center of NGC 6712 as well as some surrounding areas. The ESO astronomers used these images to investigate the properties of the stars in NGC 6712 and to look for possible signatures of the accretion process that is supposed to have formed the halo of the Milky Way. Thanks to the excellent observaitonal data from the VLT, they were able to measure accurately the brightness and colours of even quite faint stars in NGC 6712. The study concentrated on cluster stars in an interval corresponding to slightly less bright than the Sun and down to about 100 times fainter. It is believed that the deficit of light stars in NGC 6712 is caused by the loss into the halo of the Milky Way of the large majority of the stars that were originally formed in this cluster.