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This star-studded image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope depicts NGC 6717, which lies more than 20 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. NGC 6717 is a globular cluster, a roughly spherical collection of stars tightly bound together by gravity. Globular clusters contain more stars in their centres than their outer fringes, as this image aptly demonstrates; the sparsely populated edges of NGC 6717 are in stark contrast to the sparkling collection of stars at its centre.
The centre of the image also contains some interlopers from closer to home. Bright foreground stars close to Earth are surrounded by criss-cross diffraction spikes formed by starlight interacting with the structures supporting Hubble’s secondary mirror.
The area of the night sky which contains the constellation Sagittarius also contains the centre of the Milky Way, which is filled with light-absorbing gas and dust. This absorption of light — which astronomers refer to as extinction — makes studying globular clusters near the Galactic centre a challenging endeavour. To determine the properties of NGC 6717, astronomers relied on a combination of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Credits: ESA/Hubble and NASA, A. Sarajedini; CC BY 4.0
Shot from my backyard in Long Beach, CA on the nights of 2022-11-19 and 2022-11-24. M79 (NGC 1904) is in the constellation Lepus, which is just south of Orion on the sky. This image was taken with a Celestron Edge HD 925 at focal length 535 mm with a Hyperstar. The camera was an Atik 414-EX monochrome with Optolong LRGB filters. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and initial processing in PixInsight; final processing in Photoshop and Topaz Labs.
L: 56 15 s exposures
R: 43 60 s exposures
G: 77 45 s exposures
B: 60 45 s exposures
In "El Cajon del Maipo" we can find several national reserves, one of them is Estero Coyanco, a paid campsite where you can do different activities besides being able to look at the beautiful night sky.
Captured on November 3, 2018.
Sony A77
18mm, F 4/5 iso 1600
30 x 30s
First Plane: HDR
18mm F/8 Iso 100
1/60s
M14 (NGC 6402) is another globular cluster in Ophiuchus, east of M10 and M12 in the sky.
Shot with LRGB filters from my backyard in Long Beach, CA.
L: 27 20 s exposures
R: 17 60 s exposures
G: 17 60 s exposures
B: 20 60 s exposures
All taken with an Atik 414-EX mono camera on a Celestron Edge HD 925 at a focal length of 1530 mm. LRGB filters are from Optolong.
Pre-processing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop.
Stack of 47 15 s ISO2500 images shot with a Nikon D5100 on a Celestron Edge HD 925.
I get the feeling I'm going to have to shoot this again from darker skies than my Bortle 8/9 backyard. I feel like there's a lot of density across this that got washed out. Or maybe it needs Hyperstar and a full 16-bit camera.
Messier 13 (M13 or NGC 6205) is also referred to as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, is one of the brightest and best known globular clusters in the northern skies. It shines at a magnitude of 5.8, is about 22,200 light years away and contains an estimated 300,000 stars.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: V
Constellation: Hercules
Right ascension: 16h 41m 41.24s
Declination: +36° 27′ 35.5″
Distance: 22.2 kly
Apparent magnitude (V): 5.8
Apparent dimensions (V): 20 arcminutes
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO AS2600mc-Pro running at -10C, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, 70 x 60 second guided exposures, darks from the library and flats at the end of imaging, focused with a ZWO EAF, controlled with a ZWO ASIAir Pro. Processed using PixInsight and DSS. Image Date: February 15, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
M62 (NGC 6266) is the globular cluster that is farthest south in Ophiuchus. Stellarium refers to it as the Flickering Globular Cluster, though I'm not sure why. The only flickering was because it was so low in my sky that it kept disappearing behind data lines and branches.
Shot with LRGB filters from my backyard in Long Beach, CA.
L: 27 30 s exposures
R: 20 60 s exposures
G: 16 60 s exposures
B: 17 60 s exposures
All taken with an Atik 414-EX mono camera on a Celestron Edge HD 925 at a focal length of 1530 mm. LRGB filters are from Optolong.
Pre-processing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop.
The densely packed globular cluster NGC 6325 glistens in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This concentrated group of stars lies around 26 000 light years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus.
Globular clusters like NGC 6325 are tightly bound collections of stars with anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of members. They can be found in all types of galaxies, and act as natural laboratories for astronomers studying star formation. This is because the constituent stars of globular clusters tend to form at roughly the same time and with similar initial composition, meaning that astronomers can use them to fine-tune their theories of how stars evolve.
Astronomers inspected this particular cluster not to understand star formation, but to search for a hidden monster. Though it might look peaceful, astronomers suspect this cluster could contain an intermediate-mass black hole that is subtly affecting the motion of surrounding stars. Previous research found that the distribution of stars in some highly concentrated globular clusters — those with stars packed relatively tightly together — was slightly different from what astronomers expected.
This discrepancy suggested that at least some of these densely packed globular clusters — including perhaps NGC 6325 — could have a black hole lurking at the centre. To explore this hypothesis further, astronomers turned to Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to observe a larger sample of densely populated globular clusters, which included this star-studded image of NGC 6325. Additional data from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys were also incorporated into this image.
[Image Description: A dense cluster of bright stars. The core of the cluster is to the left and has a distinct group of blue stars. Surrounding the core are a multitude of stars in warmer colours. These stars are very numerous near the core and become more and more sparse, and more small and distant, out to the sides of the image. A few larger stars also stand in the foreground near the edges of the image.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, E. Noyola, R. Cohen; CC BY 4.0
Messier 10 (M10 or NGC 6254) is a globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is approximately 15,000 light years away. From Wikipedia, “A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers.”
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: VII
Constellation: Ophiuchus
Right ascension: 16h 57m 8.92s
Declination: −04° 05′ 58.07″
Distance: 14.3 kly
Apparent magnitude (V): 6.6
Apparent dimensions (V): 20′.0
Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI290MC and ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, 71 x 60 seconds at 0C plus darks and flats, processed using PixInsight and DSS. Image Date: April 29, 2022. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
On 20 June 2022, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope spent just over one hour observing Messier 92 (M92), a globular cluster 27,000 light-years away in the Milky Way halo. The observation – among the very first science observations undertaken by Webb – is part of Early Release Science (ERS) program 1334, one of 13 ERS programs designed to help astronomers understand how to use Webb and make the most of its scientific capabilities.
This image of the globular cluster M92 was captured by Webb’s NIRCam instrument. Globular clusters are dense masses of tightly packed stars that all formed around the same time. In M92, there are about 300,000 stars packed into a ball about 100 light-years across. The night sky of a planet in the middle of M92 would shine with thousands of stars that appear thousands of times brighter than those in our own sky. The image shows stars at different distances from the center, which helps astronomers understand the motion of stars in the cluster, and the physics of that motion.
The black strip in the center is a chip gap, the result of the separation between two long-wavelength detectors of Webb's NIRCam instrument. The gap covers the dense center of the cluster, which is too bright to capture at the same time as the fainter, less dense outskirts of the cluster.
This image is a composite of four exposures using four different filters: F090W (0.9 microns in wavelength) is shown in blue; F150W (1.5 microns) in cyan; F277W (2.77 microns) in yellow; and F444W (4.44 microns) in red. The image is about 5 arcminutes (39 light-years) across.
[Image Description: A rectangular image oriented horizontally appears to be two separate square images with a wide black gap in between. Both squares are filled with blue, white, yellow, and red points of light of different size and brightness, most of which are stars. Altogether, the stars appear to form a loose ball-like shape whose core is obscured by the gap in the middle of the image.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, A. Pagan (STScI)
Looking towards the bright star Antares in the sky above Lake Sonoma on a pleasant night at the beginning of June.
M92 is a bright, compact globular cluster located in the northern section of Hercules. I think Robert Burnham said it best, “This is a beautiful rich globular cluster which in almost any other constellation would be considered a major show object; in Hercules it has been somewhat overshadowed by the splendor of the fabulous M13.” (Burnham’s Celestial Handbook – Volume 2 – Robert Burnham Jr.).
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: IV
Constellation: Hercules
Right ascension: 17h 17m 07.39s
Declination: +43° 08′ 09.4″[2]
Distance: 27,000 ly
Apparent magnitude (V): 6.4
Apparent dimensions (V): 14' arc minutes
Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI290MC and ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, 81 x 60 seconds at 0C plus darks and flats, processed using PixInsight and DSS. Image Date: April 29, 2022. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Messier 14 (M14 or NGC 6402 in the New General Catalog) is a globular cluster in a rather empty area of the constellation Ophiuchus. It was discovered in 1764 by the French astronomer Charles Messier who described it as a “nebula without stars, not large, faint, and round”. M14 is approximately 29,000 light-years distant. You will definitely need binoculars or a small telescope to see this cluster.
Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 14 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: May 25, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
Could dying stars hold the secret to looking younger? New evidence from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope suggests that white dwarf stars could continue to burn hydrogen in the final stages of their lives, causing them to appear more youthful than they actually are. This discovery could have consequences for how astronomers measure the ages of star clusters, which contain the oldest known stars in the universe.
These results challenge the prevalent view of white dwarfs as inert, slowly cooling burned-out stars where nuclear fusion has stopped. Now, an international group of astronomers has discovered the first evidence that white dwarfs can slow down their rate of aging by burning hydrogen on their surfaces.
To investigate the physics underpinning white dwarf evolution, astronomers compared cooling white dwarfs in two massive collections of stars: the globular clusters M13 and M3. These two clusters share many physical properties such as age and metallicity, but the populations of stars which will eventually give rise to white dwarfs are different. This makes M13 and M3 together a perfect natural laboratory in which to test how different populations of white dwarfs cool.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, and G. Piotto et al.
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #globularcluster
Just as people of the same age can vary greatly in appearance and shape, so do collections of stars or stellar aggregates. New observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope suggest that chronological age alone does not tell the complete story when it comes to the evolution of star clusters.
Previous research on the formation and evolution of star clusters has suggested that these systems tend to be compact and dense when they form, before expanding with time to become clusters of both small and large sizes. New Hubble observations in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy have increased our understanding of how the size of star clusters in the LMC changes with time.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA; CC BY 4.0
Messier 3 (also known as M3 or NGC 5272) is a globular cluster found in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici. M3 is one of the three brightest globular clusters in the Northern hemisphere (along with M13 and M5). This cluster is made up of around 500,000 stars. It is estimated to be 11.4 billion years old. It is located at a distance of about 33,900 light-years away from Earth.
Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 39 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: April 22, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
Globular clusters offer some of the most spectacular sights in the night sky. These ornate spheres contain hundreds of thousands of stars, and reside in the outskirts of galaxies. The Milky Way contains over 150 such clusters - and the one shown in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, named NGC 362, is one of the more unusual ones.
As stars make their way through life they fuse elements together in their cores, creating heavier and heavier elements - known in astronomy as metals - in the process. When these stars die, they flood their surroundings with the material they have formed during their lifetimes, enriching the interstellar medium with metals. Stars that form later therefore contain higher proportions of metals than their older relatives.
By studying the different elements present within individual stars in NGC 362, astronomers discovered that the cluster boasts a surprisingly high metal content, indicating that it is younger than expected. Although most globular clusters are much older than the majority of stars in their host galaxy, NGC 362 bucks the trend, with an age lying between 10 and 11 billion years old. For reference, the age of the Milky Way is estimated to be above 13 billion years.
This image, in which you can view NGC 362's individual stars, was taken by Hubbleâs Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA, CC BY 4.0
Here is a view of the teapot section of Sagittarius taken early this morning, May 8, 2017. This is about as high as it will get in the skies of Carbon County, Pennsylvania. Looking forward to capturing some nice deep space objects later this year.
Tech Specs: Canon 6D, Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM lens, ISO 3200, 3 x 8 seconds, f/2.8, 70mm, tripod mounted. Date: May 8, 2017. Location: Weatherly, Pennsylvania.
NGC 6752, also known as the Great Peacock Globular or the Pavo Cluster, is a globular cluster in the constellation Pavo.
It is the fourth-brightest globular cluster in the sky, after Omega Centauri, 47 Tucanae and Messier 22, respectively. It is best seen from June to October in the Southern Hemisphere.
Imaged using a 8" SCT at f6.3 (1280mm focal length), with a QHY268M camera.
The total integration time for this image through all of the LRGB filters was 4 hours and 12 minutes.
Exposures: L:12x300s @ FW:31, R:20x120s G:19x180s B:19x300s @ HCG:62/OFS:25
Messier 10 (M10 or NGC 6254) is a globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is approximately 15,000 light years away. From Wikipedia, “A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers.”
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: VII
Constellation: Ophiuchus
Right ascension: 16h 57m 8.92s
Declination: −04° 05′ 58.07″
Distance: 14.3 kly
Apparent magnitude (V): 6.6
Apparent dimensions (V): 20′.0
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 81x60 seconds guided exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: May 13, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Messier 53 (also known as M53 or NGC 5024) is a globular cluster in the Coma Berenices constellation and is one of the more outlying globular clusters. It is roughly 60,000 light-years away from our solar system.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: V
Constellation: Coma Berenices
Right ascension: 13h 12m 55.25s
Declination: +18° 10′ 05.4″
Distance: 58,000 ly
Apparent magnitude (V): 7.6
Apparent dimensions (V): 13’
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 135x60 seconds guided exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: May 15, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Omega Centauri, NGC5139.
The biggest & brightest of all the Globular Clusters, a real treat in the eyepiece when visual observing and imaged here using the Seestar S50.
OC doesn't disappoint if you like stars, and plenty of them!
Seestar S50, 30min 10" subs.
M30 (NGC 7099) is a bright globular cluster located in the southern constellation Capricornus. M30 is about 27,000 light-years from the Earth. I read an abstract titled “Accreted versus In Situ Milky Way Globular Clusters” by Duncan A. Forbes and Terry Bridges (January 2010) in which M30 is listed as a candidate globular cluster that was stolen from another galaxy at some point in time. The term “accreted” means “come or bring together under the influence of gravitation.”
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, Canon 6D stock camera, ISO 3200, 16 x 60 second exposures with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: October 13, 2018. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
M5 (NGC 5904) is a bright globular cluster located in the constellation Serpens. M5 is one of the oldest globular clusters, as well as one of the brightest, in our galaxy. Estimates to the number of stars vary from 100,000 to as many as 500,000.
Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 30 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: May 25, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
Here is a view of Jupiter's close approach to globular cluster NGC 6235, a small 10th magnitude globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus.
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Canon 6D, ISO 3200, 5 x 60 second exposures with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: July 26, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
Messier 10 (or M10) is a globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is approximately 15,000 light years away. From Wikipedia, “A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers.”
Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 20 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: May 25, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
Messier 13 is a globular cluster of approximately 300,000 stars in the constellation of Hercules. The cluster is located 25,000 light years away and is approximately 145 light years in diameter.
Details:
L: 38 x 300s
RGB: 18 x 300s per channel
Total: 7.67 hours
Equipment:
William Optics GT71, Atik 428EX, Astronomik LRGB
Processed with Pixinsight
Messier 13, also referred to as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, is one of the brightest and best known globular clusters in the northern skies. It shines at a magnitude of 5.8, is about 22,200 light years away and contains an estimated 300,000 stars.
Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 27 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: March 22, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
A picture of M13, a globular cluster I took last week (5hr 20min total exposure.) It is roughly 300,000 stars, about 25,000 light-years away, but still within our galaxy. It's just barely visible with the naked eye, in a dark sky.
I show it off-center to illustrate a couple more galaxies in the shot. Off to the right is NGC6207-- 37 million LYs away from us. And to the lower right is IC 4617. The light from this distant object was emitted by the galaxy 489 million light-years ago, and then was captured by my camera last week, to show you.
Stack of 21 ISO 2000 15 s frames shot with a Nikon D5100 mounted on a Celestron Edge HD 925 at a focal length of 2160 mm. Preprocessed in Nebulosity; stacked and initially processed in PixInsight; final touches in GIMP.
This was part of an experiment to see if I could get globular clusters with unguided exposures with the DSLR. Results seem promising for bright clusters.
Once my tracking was steady I couldn't resist a portrait of the LMC and the SMC side by side. Thin clouds crossed the frames but it didn't do too much harm to the overall image.
Messier 107 (M107) is a loose globular cluster found in the constellation Ophiuchus. M107 is about 20,900 light-years away from Earth.
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Canon 6D, ISO 3200, 15 x 60 second exposures with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: June 23, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
Messier 3 (also known as M3 or NGC 5272) is a globular cluster found in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici. M3 is one of the three brightest globular clusters in the Northern hemisphere (along with M13 and M5).
Tech Specs: This image is composed of 8 x 60 second images at ISO 3,200 with 4 x 60 second darks and 4 x 1/4000 second bias frames using a Meade LX90 12” telescope and Canon 6D camera mounted on a Celestron CGEM-DX mount. Guided using a Canon 400mm lens and ZWO ASI290MC camera. Imaging was done on April 14, 2017 from Weatherly, Pennsylvania.
M13 is a globular star cluster in the constellation Hercules containing hundreds of thousands of stars. Captured during a period of travel restrictions from within Seattle City Limits.
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 8" @ f/7
Camera: QSI 683wsg
Mount: Astro-Physics Mach 1
Integration: 30 mins (20 x 90 sec) each of RGB
Binning: 1x1
Processing Software: PixInsight + Paint Shop Pro
Here is a view of the most distant globular cluster in the Milky Way, NGC 2419, some have postulated that this may be an extra-galactic object. I have seen distances listed as high as 285,000 light-years away from Earth. It appears small and dim, but it is actually very large and very bright (if it was a bit closer to us), there are estimates of 300-400 million solar masses in this cluster.
Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI290MC and ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, 54 x 60 seconds at -10C plus darks and flats, stacked in DSS. Image Date: November 6, 2021. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Here is a view of Messier 22 (M22 or NGC 6656), a bright globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius and located near the galactic bulge. M22 is about 10,700 light-years away and is one of the older globs in the Milky Way. You may have known this, I did not, that this is one of four globular clusters that have a planetary nebula.
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, Canon 6D stock camera, ISO 3200, 10 x 60 second exposures with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: September 28, 2018. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
Messier 3 (also known as M3 or NGC 5272) is a globular cluster found in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici. M3 is one of the three brightest globular clusters in the Northern hemisphere (along with M13 and M5).
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Canon 6D stock camera, ISO 3200, 10 x 60 second with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Image date: 31 May 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory in Weatherly, PA.
Messier 5 (M5 or NGC 5904) is a bright globular cluster located in the constellation Serpens. M5 is one of the oldest globular clusters, as well as one of the brightest in our galaxy. Estimates to the number of stars vary from 100,000 to as many as 500,000.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: V
Constellation: Serpens
Right ascension: 15h 18m 33.22s
Declination: +02° 04′ 51.7″
Distance: 24.5 kly
Apparent magnitude (V): 5.6
Apparent dimensions (V): 23′.0
Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI290MC and ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, 81 x 60 seconds at 0C plus darks and flats, processed using PixInsight and DSS. Image Date: March 3, 2022. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
M13 is now high in the night sky. It glows majestically and is an astonishing view in even a modest amateur telescope. It is very old, 12 to 14 billion years! Its old stars can be seen in red on the picture. But surprisingly there are also young ones glowing in blue. How comes? Astronomers are not sure; they could have been captured by the gravity of this huge cluster of more than 100000 stars.
This is my first picture with good resolution with a STXL 11002m. I only found last night after nearly a year, that its fan was inducing vibrations of the scope spoiling the resolution by elongating badly the stars. The solution was to switch off the fan and use water cooling instead.
C11-HD F=2800mm on a G11 mount
STLX 11002m cooled at -35°C
11 subs of 120s inL, FWHM ~ 3
11 subs in red, 60s bin2x2
9 subs in green, 60s bin2x2
11 subs in bue, 60s bin2x2
Here is a view of the most distant globular cluster in the Milky Way, NGC 2419, some have postulated that this may be an extra-galactic object. I have seen distances listed as high as 285,000 light-years away from Earth. It appears small and dim, but it is actually very large and very bright (if it was a bit closer to us), there are estimates of 300-400 million solar masses in this cluster. This image combines data collected in 2021 and 2023 for a total of 1 hour 54 minutes of light.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: VII
Constellation: Lynx
Right ascension: 07h 38m 08.51s
Declination: +38° 52′ 54.9″
Distance: 275 kly
Apparent magnitude (V): +9.06
Apparent dimensions (V): 6′
Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI290MC and ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO ASIAir Pro, ZWO EAF. 116 x 60 seconds at -10C plus darks and flats. Processed using PixInsight and DSS. Image Date: November 5, 2021 and January 15, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Daniel Verschatse Observatory
Hacienda los Andes, Chile
Telescopio refractor Astro-Physics 105 mm F6 "Traveler"
Montura equatorial Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO
Cámara principal QHY163 C CMOS
Cámara guiado QHY5-II
Sistema de enfoque Robofocus
Captura de datos/automatización The SkyX professional edition/ Max Pilot
25 tomas de 120s. Tiempo total de integración 50m.
Procesado con Pixinsight y Gimp (GNU Linux)
Localización: Hacienda los Andes, Rio Hurtado, Chile
Astrometry.net job 4627359
Center (RA, hms):13h 26m 47.195s
Center (Dec, dms):-47° 28' 46.405"
Size:1.52 x 1.15 deg
Radius:0.952 deg
Pixel scale:1.18 arcsec/pixel
Orientation:Up is 90.3 degrees E of N
Globular Cluster Messier 92 (M92 or NGC 6341) is a bright, compact globular cluster located in the northern section of Hercules. I think Robert Burnham said it best, “This is a beautiful rich globular cluster which in almost any other constellation would be considered a major show object; in Hercules it has been somewhat overshadowed by the splendor of the fabulous M13.” (Burnham’s Celestial Handbook – Volume 2 – Robert Burnham Jr.).
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Class: IV
Constellation: Hercules
Right ascension: 17h 17m 07.39s
Declination: +43° 08′ 09.4″[2]
Distance: 27,000 ly
Apparent magnitude (V): 6.4
Apparent dimensions (V): 14' arc minutes
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 76x60 seconds guided exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: May 13, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
M9 (NGC 6333) is yet another globular cluster in Ophiuchus. This one is farther south, in the region between Scorpius and Sagittarius.
Shot with LRGB filters from my backyard in Long Beach, CA.
L: 49 30 s exposures
R: 28 60 s exposures
G: 21 60 s exposures
B: 27 60 s exposures
All taken with an Atik 414-EX mono camera on a Celestron Edge HD 925 at a focal length of 1530 mm. LRGB filters are from Optolong.
Pre-processing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop.
There are a few Messier objects in the northern parts of the constellation Ophiuchus. Most of them are globular clusters. M10 (NGC 6254) is one of them.
Shot with LRGB filters from my backyard in Long Beach, CA.
L: 37 20 s exposures
R: 17 60 s exposures
G: 19 60 s exposures
B: 15 60 s exposures
All taken with an Atik 414-EX mono camera on a Celestron Edge HD 925 at a focal length of 1530 mm. LRGB filters are from Optolong.
Pre-processing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop.
This 2003 Chandra image shows multimillion degree gas in two galaxies in the Virgo galaxy cluster that are now more than 100,000 light years apart. In NGC 4438, the larger galaxy in the lower part of the image, filaments of hot gas have been pulled to the right of the galaxy. The hot gas in the smaller galaxy, NGC 4435 (upper right), is concentrated around its central region.
Combined X-ray, optical, and radio observations indicate that the two galaxies bumped into each other in the relatively recent past, about 100 million years ago. The collision was apparently a glancing one, in which the galaxies came within about 16,000 light years of each other. Such collisions are relatively common in the crowded confines of the Virgo galaxy cluster. The center of the cluster contains hundreds of galaxies whizzing around at speeds of millions of miles per hour.
During the encounter between NGC4438 and NGC 4435, gravitational tidal forces tugged at the gas and stars on the outer parts of the galaxies. NGC 4438 was damaged in the collision, but the hot gas will probably fall back into the disk of the galaxy in a few hundred million years. NGC 4435, being less massive than NGC 4438, proved to be less crash worthy and appears to have lost most of its hot gas to intergalactic space.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/M.Machacek et al.
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #globularcluster
Picture an unguided image of the globular star cluster M92 in Hercules taken with a ZWOASI183MC camera through a 130mm f/5 reflecting telescope and processed using DeepSkyStacker and Lightroom.
A misty moonlit night was a poor time to try RGB, imaging but without any nebulae in my part of the sky at that time i decided to give it a shot, i chose a star cluster for 2 reasons - bright enough to show up in short exposures, and wouldn't require much stretching during post-processing.
Simple RG and B (no luminance) 2min x 10 subs per filter. with darks.
M107 (NGC 6171) is another globular cluster in Ophiuchus, a bit south of the star Saik.
Shot with LRGB filters from my backyard in Long Beach, CA.
L: 20 20 s exposures
R: 15 60 s exposures
G: 15 60 s exposures
B: 17 60 s exposures
All taken with an Atik 414-EX mono camera on a Celestron Edge HD 925 at a focal length of 1530 mm. LRGB filters are from Optolong.
Pre-processing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop.
M71 is about 12,000 light years away from Earth and is about 27 light years across. Up until the 1970’s this cluster was designated as a densely packed open cluster because of the loose central region, today it is designated as a loosely concentrated globular cluster with a young age of 9-10 billion years.
Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 29 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: May 25, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.